Summer Tier Points - BA174 New York JFK to London Heathrow - CLUB WORLD

BA174 New York JFK to London Heathrow – CLUB WORLD – Summer Tier Points

In this… epic.

BA174 New York JFK to London Heathrow T5.
British Airways Boeing 747-400 Mid-J configuration
61K, Upper Deck
140 Tier Points Earned, 3,452 Base Avios + 863 Tier Bonus Avios + 1,726 Tier Bonus Avios

Lets go!

Duty free anyone?

I was welcomed aboard the plane and instructed to head to one of the most private places in the sky – the upper deck of a Boeing 747.

Up we go!

Sanctuary for some – the upper deck.

Let’s have a look at the seat.

British Airways Club World seat

No Air Vents…

The seating here is the classic BA ying/yang business class seats, with aisle seats facing forward and window seats backwards in the direction of travel. I settled into my seat of 61A and got to grips with my surroundings

Club World Seat Guide., May also cook, blend, make coffee.

I flipped open the In-Flight Entertainment screen… and to my horror… I found a tiny screen.

This IFE Screen is from the dawn of time…

Old IFE system is old.

The plane had the ancient Rockwell Collins IFE system that has been the bane of my life when flying BA. Most time recently, I’ve managed to luck out on the Super HI planes that have the Panasonic ex3 systems (and offer a superior IFE experience).

This in 2018 is… how can I put it politely… is pretty ancient.

With me settling in, I moved the bedding off the seat into the side bin, as well as a few other things. Pre-departure beverages arrived

Pre-departure beverages. EOS 6D not included.

An amenity kit also arrived to, as well as the menu.

With a busy load, the Boeing 747 pushed back on time, and the safety video played. Now, the first version of this was pretty reasonable… If a little long.

Alas, it seems British Airways think they can play this joke 2 for 2… and this video just feels long without imparting information. That’s not a good thing for a safety video.

Your name might be Michael Caine… but that safety video is too long, and needs some nips and tucks.

And to be honest, I read the 747 Safety card instead

With the plane continuing its taxi, I have sat away from the terminal missing most of the planes.

The 18:30 departure to Heathrow pushing back

Iberia A330-300

Air France A380

Off to the runway we go.

Except for these- a state of Kuwait Boeing 747-8i as well as some other private jets.

State of Kuwait Boeing 747-8i

Mystery Boeing 777

Whilst the traffic queue to get out of JFK “long enough”, eventually – the 747 turned and powered up it’s Roll Royce RB211’s for the short hop to London Heathrow.

Climbing out

Climb-out was nice and smooth, with the BA174 making short work of the evening sky.

In vain, I turned on the Wi-Fi on my phone… and found nothing. Whilst the physical installed had been done, it seems, the on-board service hadn’t been activated.

Hmm.

At least the headphones that are supplied are reasonable (if not Bose quality), and the plane has offline BBC World News (and yes – I do bang on about this – there’s just something reassuring about a BBC World news announcer when travelling on a plane).

Headphones

This is the voice of the BBC…

And that’s when the IFE worked – because the entire system crashed twice.

Please wait…

Seriously – I know these planes are due to exit the fleet in the medium term, but can someone give BA a pretty penny to fit modern IFE systems to these planes, please?

Even the external IFE was getting a little dark.

First drinks service followed, and it seems that the service would be the new Club World Service. The new glassware however which classic – does look like something that would come out of Hyacinth Buckets House. This was served with nuts.

The main meal came along – and it is important to note where BA has taken a few cues from other carriers – be in the plating or the mini breads in the bowl

.
The tray. Note the breads, butter and well… the general plating. A major step-change.

Tiny Breads are tiny.

These were warm and edible, with the mushroom soup being quite flavourful, and salad – whilst small – fresh. Add the covered butter – this a cut above the normal BA catering with Do&Co doing a good job.

This was followed with the chicken and sweet potatoes. An interesting mix that seemed to compliment each other with fresh flavours.

This is an improvement compared to some club world meals I’ve had.

I passed on the dessert options – instead of making my bed with the new White company bedding – which was very comfortable. Shoving on a mattress topper on the bed and a duvet/blanket sort of thing makes a big difference.

Divider up…

Bedding out..

Goodnight world

I watched Bobs Burgers and drifted off to sleep

I woke in time for the full breakfast service. Whilst I was pretty full from dinner, it would have been rude to turn down the service

It arrived with coffee a Croissant, fruit and a breakfast Panini, filled with eggs and bacon. And again, this was a decent arrivals service. The fruit had remained fresh, the croissant wasn’t overly hard and the panini was filled reasonably well.

The tray

The Panini.

t
Tiny croissant is tiny

Heck. This may beat the old BA Bacon Roll (which at some outstations got very wild very quick!)

With the plane waking up, and everyone having breakfast (be it the fast or slow forms of it). I raised the blinds to see the sun beginning to rise above the heavily cloudy skies.

With the captain making a 40-minute announcement, there was a bit of rush in the upper deck cabin to use the small room in time (it’s as almost as bad as Economy class).

The cabin was tidied for landing, with the upper deck cabin secure at 20 minutes before touch.

Closing in.

Cabin secured

BA174 did a few loops in a Heathrow stack before being allowed to head in for landing.

Central London

Hyde Park

West London

With ease, the Boeing 747 cleared the stack and begun its approach into London, making short work of the landing on 27R.

With the plane pulling off the runway, it was a short taxi over to T5B – where we would be released today. Whilst I didn’t have time to dawdle at Heathrow – I had time to connect, so I was reasonably interested we would make the gate on time

Passing the Tower of Power

Face-on…

Qatar Airways Airbus A380

With a final flourish, the plane pulled into the gate – ending the flight.

Disembarkation was slow, with passengers clearing upper deck to the lower deck, and to the exit via World Traveller Plus and finally exiting through door 1L.

Thank you 61K.

Down we go…

…. through World Traveller Plus.

I thanked the crew, and hiked off the plane.

Overall: Oh so close BA. Oh so close. We’re seeing a major up-tick in on-board service that can take the fight to AA and other carriers. We’re seeing product improvements – also welcome But putting on a Mid-J 747 was a joke wasn’t it? Sending out a plane that has seen better days like that on a premium service out of JFK was more than a little silly wasn’t it.

The crew rose to the occasion, with the upper deck crew rising to the customer service challenge.

But (and I’ll be considered a heretic by some), I still don’t like the Boeing 747 experience. Whilst it does offer the private jet experience on the upper deck, the lower deck is misery. From the 8-across business class seating, the 7 across World Traveller plus and the annoying 10 across World Traveller, it’s a world of pain.

And whilst it looks good in the sky (and BA are sweating the assets for all they’re worth), their time in the passenger experience game is coming to an end. New planes that are more efficient are around the corner – and knowing BA – will have a new generation product that should blow these old planes out of the water.

Whilst that will be sad for some… I won’t be sad saying goodbye to the Queen of the Skies.

Next: An Early morning change at Heathrow

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Comments

CraigTPA says

25/10/2018 at 8:49 am

Wow, it looks like the hard product hasn’t changed one bit since the last time I flew JFK-LHR on a BA 747 – and that was somewhere around 15 years ago.

The food looks better, though.
- Kevincm says
  
  25/10/2018 at 8:51 am
  
  When you get a refurbished plane, there are few distinct differences. But this plane hasn’t changed much. Sadly.

Summer Tier Points – BA174 New York JFK to London Heathrow – CLUB WORLD

BA174 New York JFK to London Heathrow – CLUB WORLD – Summer Tier Points

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