A Non-Pictorial Trip Report: LHR-JFK-LHR on BA's Club World (New and Old)

[jjpb3]

I know. After the visually stunning reports from CGK, quik!, KeithMEL, and DeltaFlyingProf, this will seem so much dowdier. But you see, I'm writing as a representative of the generation of time-constrained, techno-dinosaurs out there. Where a picture (of the cabins and my hotel) might have sufficed, I'll instead be spending a thousand words . Bear with me. All right, I'm pulling out the age card: in keeping with the Asian traditions of SQ, I'll appeal to the patriarchal imperative, which is that you have to respect your elders.

This is a tale of a business trip, the kind where you're hard-pressed to appreciate the finer aspects of the travel experience because your primary objective is to get to a (relatively) quiet place so you can power up your laptop and do some work. Fortunately, I had none of the charms of the SKL, VS CH, or SQ cabin crew to distract me, so I could focus on the core components of a road warrior's experience. I hope my report can provide some useful insight or advice ...

(You've been warned, oroit? If you don't want to read the subsequent installments, click outta this thread!)

[jjpb3]

Part I: LHR T4 (shudder)

This business trip was the continuation of the travel demands of one project. Work required that I shuttle between LHR and CPH and ZRH during the past several weeks, so I'd grown accustomed to rotating my toiletries across three rollaboards, and packing these rollaboards to minimize the mental energy needed to adjust to a new destination. My flat was increasingly taking the look of the minimally habitable.

By the time Saturday morning rolled around, I knew I couldn't make my optimistically planned 1055 BA flight to JFK. I was too exhausted to get up. I called our travel office and had myself moved to the next flight. That gave me enough time to pack carefully (I knew I had to leave room for the fruits of NYC shopping ) and to enjoy a relatively leisurely breakfast.

One issue with travelling TATL this time of the year is that there can be a gulf between the temperatures in London and NYC. In this case, there was such a gulf. So I had to pack relatively warm clothing, even though London had already turned temperate. Add to that the requirement of business clothes, and the demands of non-stodgy clothing in NYC. My luggage was under stress.

I'd also come to the conclusion that my back would no longer take the weight of my clunky work computer without threatening to disable me at an inopportune moment. So I knew I had to visit the Tumi outlet in LHR T4 to check out the wheeled laptop bags they had.

What to do? How to pack? My solution: use my 22" Briggs & Riley rolling case (expandable to accommodate my NYC purchases) for the stuff I was going to check in, and my B&R (non-wheeled) carryon for my work stuff plus the things that make long-haul travel civilized (book, iPod, QC3 -- more on this below). Once I got to LHR T4, I could consider the option of the Tumi rolling laptop bag, which, if reasonably priced, would then join my luggage to JFK and back to LHR.

[jjpb3]

Part II: LHR T4 Still

I arrived at T4 with plenty of time to spare, and confronted the usual sight of the milling masses of passengers before me. Using the BA kiosks to check in or claim your BP is relatively painless if you have a BA card that you can use to access your booking. It's a bit more temperamental, IME, if you use a oneworld partner card. Actually, don't bother sticking your partner card in the kiosks. The machine will usually express its regret at not being able to read your card. Begin with the credit card you used to purchase the ticket, and make sure you have your BA booking reference at hand.

The travel agency placed me on the lower deck, so I hoped for the best and searched for available seats on the upper deck. Jackpot! Although my favorite 64K was taken, I saw that 64A was not. I grabbed it. It meant a window seat without having to climb over someone's foot. I've found that I actually like flying backwards, so the backward-facing seat wasn't an issue, but rather a bonus.

For long-haul travel, you should use the right-hand side of T4 (as you enter). This means the counters to the right of the KLM counters. Intra-Europe travellers should bear left.

BA uses the single queue system, which means you will usually have an S-shaped line on the way to where you drop your luggage off. At certain parts of the day, this isn't too bad. At others, it's a shameful way to treat premium class passengers. But it's part of the LHR experience, I suppose, and I usually console myself with thoughts of my homecoming into what I consider the home city of my soul.

After the checkin process (which took me less than 10 minutes this time), it was off to the farce that is BAA security. I've never understood why they don't extend the d*mn rollers so that you can place your laptop, coats, and shoes way before the actual security machine. This would allow people to begin the process of dismantling their travel accessories early on. Instead you have people not being able to strip down early, and you get a bottleneck close to the machine. Ah, the astounding (il)logic of BAA.

I've promised myself to be calmer about the whole BAA experience, but I've got a loooong way to go.

Shoes back on, I trooped off to the Tumi outlet and picked the smallest of the rolling laptop bags. Knowing myself and my amazing ability to get buyer's remorse, I asked the sales person to place it in a bag, and I took it to the Gate 1 Lounge, where I enjoyed a nice hot meal and did some work ... and where I came to the realization that I needed a bigger laptop bag.

Back I went to the outlet; got myself a proper-sized (i.e., built for work) laptop bag; speared my B&R carryon on the Tumi handle; and walked briskly to the distant gate where they parked our plane. (For the information of those infrequent BA travellers, if your gate at T4 is 20-24, leave PLENTY of time to hoof it to your departure area.)

Boarding started uneventfully, and I presented my BP and passport and proceeded down the ramp ... and further down, onto stairs ... and further down. The airbridge wasn't working! We had to walk up some stairs to get onto the plane.

Now if this were a leisure trip, there might have been some glamour from a bygone era attached to this experience. But I had my clunky work laptop, plus a carryon bag, to shlep up those stairs. I'll spare you the choice words from the parents who had strollers and baby supplies with them (which only reinforced the wisdom behind my decision to avoid the lower deck).

But I finally made it onboard -- and despite the mildly irritating "Today you're upstairs, sir" reminder from the cabin crew [yes, I was cranky by this time] -- I could relax. I was so tired from the sleep deprivation of the previous week that I didn't even realize that I had stepped into the refurbished Club World cabin ... until a member of the upper deck crew reminded me of the new bells and whistles, such as AVOD (oh, how pathbreaking KrisWorld is!) and the new translucent privacy partition.

My journey was promising to be more interesting than I had suspected ...

[jjpb3]

BA's New Club World: Hard Product

First a brief introduction for those not familiar with BA's Club World product...

BA was the first airline to design a perfectly horizontal seatbed. To minimize the loss of floor space arising from the fully horizontal position, BA came up with a rather innovative forwards-backwards arrangement, where front-facing seats alternated with back-facing seats.

This came at a cost. One, passengers now faced (literally) the dilemma of staring into their neighbor's face. Traditional seating arrangements avoided this by having everyone face forward. BA tried to solve this with a fan-like divider between the seats. It doesn't quite do the job. If you decide to go full flat to sleep but your neighbor decides to lean back to enjoy the IFE (what limited selection there is ), the gap between the divider and the edge of the seat is perfectly positioned to allow you to gaze up your neighbor's nostrils. Or so it has been, IME.

Two, the front-back arrangement works really well in maximizing seats per cabin by making the feet area narrower than the shoulder area. The result was a tight squeeze for more burly passengers. I don't consider myself burly, but the old CW cabin constrained my shoulder space.

The benefit, though, was a perfectly horizontal bed, which did wonders for businessmen trying to get much-needed sleep before the meetings they had to attend when they landed. It was enough to allow BA to shave its investments (relative to competitors) in the soft product (consistency of service, frequent flyer recognition).

Now back to the present ...

The new Club World is a good, if incremental, improvement over this old arrangement.

First, there is now a translucent divider that goes up with the push (OK, sometimes a very hard push) of a button, located on the edge of the panel that contains the divider. It's made of plastic, and has just the right amount of translucence to allow light through, without allowing a sharp image of your neighbor through. Very nice. And the height is just high enough to render your neighbor un-viewable, while allowing cabin crew to see whether they should check to see whether your champagne needs topping up. The divider still has to be lowered during the safety video, so it took some willpower not to stare at my neighbor's nose piercings. But the divider can be raised after the video has been shown.

Second, there is AVOD. Welcome to our century, BA ... finally! On my flight, the old remote control was still sulking in its cradle, but really, it was no longer needed. The BA AVOD is all touch-screen. The fast-forward option took a little getting used to, but it was OK once you got the hang of it. Essentially, you press the fast-forward button on the screen (every press accelerates the speed of the fast forwarding), and you have to guess-timate whether the section of the movie or TV show you're interested in has been reached. Finally, I could pause the show when I was asked about my meal (or drink ) choice.

The AVOD selection is nowhere near as extensive as KrisWorld's or CXStudio's, but it wasn't bad. I'm a BIG fan of documentaries created in the UK, so I was quite happy: the feature on Genghis Khan was spellbinding. Plus, the comedy channel on the radio never fails to make me laugh out loud -- and no doubt to startle my neighbors into asking whether they should raise an alarm with the cabin crew.

Finally, the little touches like the table and the screen were much more user-friendly, meaning they didn't take a lot of energy to use and to adjust to your comfort level. The table's position was easier to adjust, and the screen was easier to pop out and adjust.

My main quibble was that the table felt too unstable at its hinge. When I tried to fill out my immigration form, the table kept bobbing up and down from the pressure of my pen! That sort of instability is very irritating, particularly when you're trying to work.

My summary verdict on the hard product: a good improvement over the older product. It will keep BA in the running for TATL premium travel. I'm not sure, however, that it will keep BA in the front of the race for the Europe-Asia routes. But I haven't tried the new SQ cabin, or the still-to-be-rolled out CX cabin.

To be continued ...

[SQflyergirl]

but the old CW cabin constrained my shoulder space.

It's your fault for going to the gym and chiseling your body to the stunningly fit state it's in now!

[KeithMEL]

Very nice, jjpb3!

I've always found that it takes more effort writing a non-pictorial TR. Part of the reason why I supply pics is that I'm too lazy to come up with enough words to allow readers to visualise what I experienced. So kudos to you for coming up with a beautifully written TR!

Going OT: Mmm, a pic speak a thousand words indeed. So does that mean I can simply submit 5 pictures for my 5000 word Law essay?

[jjpb3]

It's your fault for going to the gym and chiseling your body to the stunningly fit state it's in now!

You're too kind, my dear. But sadly the days when I could aspire to a chiseled body are long past.

[jjpb3]

JFK and NYC -- Part I

Soon it was time to pack up the headphones, stow the screen and grab some reading materials. The pilot, as only BA pilots (IME) can, coaxed us into relaxing for our descent. "Cabin crew, 10 minutes to landing."

Only it took 30 minutes. I knew my flight jinx wasn't over. The captain then warned us that because of the particular stand we were assigned, we had to stop the engines and wait for a truck to pull us in. So we stopped. And waited. And waited some more.

Finally the truck arrived and we moved towards the gate. The sound system pinged, people rushed to get their luggage, and we waited for the door to open. And waited. And waited. There were several conversations between the purser and some other party, and the last one had the purser saying, "Oh no, I'm not telling them that. You go and announce it." Uh oh.

So the calm captain's voice comes on again and asks us to return to our seats and fasten our seatbelts, because we had been pulled within inches of the reach of the airbridge. So close and yet so far. By the time the door was finally opened, the rush to get out and get into the city was overpowering.

I've never had a problem with NYC immigration, and this time was no different. I had an amiable chat with the officer, and I left immigration to find my luggage already taking a spin on the carousel. Niiice. Very soon I found myself in a cab to The City (as Noo Yawkers call it). It must have been the weekend effect, but there was absolutely no traffic. My cab driver had the sense to go via the Brooklyn Bridge, which was a nice change from my usual Midtown Tunnel route.

Next stop: the W Hotel at Union Square.

To be continued ...

[SQFAN]

Well written TR, jjpb3.

Yup, those BAA should have the foresight to have an elongated rollers system. Then again, you have pax taking their own sweet time disrobing and unpacking their items/clothes.

I also like to make a comment about the inconsistencies between the liquid issue between LGW and LHR, which I found out to my dismay last weekend. Shame on you BAA TW*ts!

Hey, I thought you were sleep deprived and yet you have time to watch the G.K documentary? ...Keep the TR coming....

[StarG]

Leaving for work on a Saturday?

I have yet to experience BA Club World, and hope to try it someday.

Thanks for (as always) well written non-pics TR, jjpb3.

[jhm]

The result was a tight squeeze for more burly passengers. I don't consider myself burly, but the old CW cabin constrained my shoulder space.

Was the new CW cabin better in this respect ?

[jjpb3]

Was the new CW cabin better in this respect ?

The seat did seem wider to me, and this impression was reinforced by my return leg, which was with the old CW seats. Definitely not as wide as the SpaceBed, though.

Hey, I thought you were sleep deprived and yet you have time to watch the G.K documentary? ...Keep the TR coming....

Good TV is always my undoing.

[jhm]

Thanks for the reply. Apologies for the abrupt question - I was interrupted by my boss (great trip report so far BTW, looking forward to more!)

[UMD]

The seat did seem wider to me, and this impression was reinforced by my return leg, which was with the old CW seats. Definitely not as wide as the SpaceBed, though.

Good TV is always my undoing.

I love documentary as well + the 24 hrs cooking channel.

If the G.K. documentary is the same as the one on National Geography, then it is indeed a good documentary.

By the way, this is a great T.R. Did people let out a big "sigh" when they were asked to go back to their seats? Did you?

[jjpb3]

Did people let out a big "sigh" when they were asked to go back to their seats? Did you?

Not so much a sigh, but a groan. I was trying to control my irritation, because I suspect immigration officers can sense your grumpiness and can out-grump you any time.