British air

[azgrandmax3]

We would like to know if British air  is dependable in the past we weren't happy with it

[mahasamatman]

They're generally pretty good.

[BEAV]

2 hours ago, azgrandmax3 said:

We would like to know if British air  is dependable in the past we weren't happy with it

 

Suggest you post the same question in the Cruise Air forum. You’ll reach a wider audience, as well as some seasoned, experienced fliers who can expound for you. 

[Host Kat]

3 hours ago, azgrandmax3 said:

We would like to know if British air  is dependable in the past we weren't happy with it

 

Hello @azgrandmax3

 

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[zanderblue]

I’m a regular flier with BA. They have struggled post pandemic with staff shortages, although they are improving. They have also had reliability issues with their A380 aircraft, so I’d be inclined to try and look for flights operated by other aircraft types.

One other point to consider is Heathrow airport, which has a poor reputation for delays/strikes. 
On the day BA can be very good if everything clicks, but they do struggle to recover from any hiccups.

We still use them because the alternatives from our home airport are pretty limited, but I think I would move away from them if that ever changed.

[Zach1213]

11 hours ago, azgrandmax3 said:

We would like to know if British air  is dependable in the past we weren't happy with it

 

Fairly dependable, yes. I've been flying them for years and, as mentioned above, they struggled a bit in the last couple of years but are coming back. In just the past week I flew them ORD-LHR-HAM and IST-LHR-GRU and all of my flights were perfectly on time. 

[azgrandmax3]

When can we pick seats? 

[Zach1213]

25 minutes ago, azgrandmax3 said:

When can we pick seats? 

 

It depends, on the type of ticket you buy, and the class you fly in. If you've booked a regular (non-basic) economy ticket, you can pick a seat when check-in opens, usually 24 hours ahead of the flight. Basic Economy tickets don't even allow that and you get what you get, unless you pay extra. 

 

If you are flying Business/First or have Oneworld frequent flier status, that changes things too. 

[Globaliser]

17 minutes ago, Zach1213 said:

It depends, on the type of ticket you buy, and the class you fly in. If you've booked a regular (non-basic) economy ticket, you can pick a seat when check-in opens, usually 24 hours ahead of the flight. Basic Economy tickets don't even allow that and you get what you get, unless you pay extra. 

 

If you are flying Business/First or have Oneworld frequent flier status, that changes things too. 

 

Off the top of my head, I think that in economy you can always pre-allocate a seat for a fee, even if you're travelling on a Basic fare. I expect that most cruise passengers would probably find that a Basic fare isn't particularly good value because it doesn't include any checked baggage so there's a fee for that too. A Standard fare would include one checked bag, which most cruise passengers would probably need/want.

 

There are quite a lot of BA business class fares that also don't include free pre-allocated seating (for those who don't get that via have frequent flyer status). But on these fares you can also pre-allocate for a fee, and you will be able to allocate your own seat for free when check-in opens.

[bigbenboys]

We did not have any problems last year on BA Sea-Lhr. I'm looking now to book Sea to Lhr for Christmas. We fly BC, the cost to reserve seats are over $100 pp per flight. Some seats cost more than others. 1st Class seat assignment is included in airfare.

The end of Jan we met up with friends in Mexico. Their BA non stop flight from Gatwick was delayed at least 6 hours. On their way home, BA had to put them up in a hotel in Cancun. Problems at Gatwick. Then in April, BA London to Argentina. BA had more problems. BA moved them to a flight a day early, so BA had to pay for their extra night at their hotel in Argentina. While I prefer BA, we might go VA. 

[ilovesalchows]

My family of four flew BA Business Class from Milan Linate-LHR-Pdx in July.  I didn't bother choosing the seats ahead of time because I refuse to pay and we all ended up sitting together anyway.

 

Incidentally, we all have Oneworld status, although lowly, and we could have picked our seats for free week ahead.  I forgot about it, however.

[SelectSys]

@azgrandmax3 dependable is a relative term, but I think BA is dependable as any carrier. I assume you would be flying out of Phoenix to London. As long as your plane doesn't have a mechnical issue, you should be good.  If a mechanical issue occurs it would probably take BA a while to respond as they only have one flight a day to and from Phoenix.  

 

I actually just flew from PHX on BA a couple of weeks ago to Germany.  I flew from there because I got a cheap deal on business class rather than flying from my home airport of San Diego which is always expensive.  If you are in Business, you while access to the "Escape Lounge" near the actual boarding gate.  This lounge is OK - although small - and is a welcome respite from the absolute madness of the international boarding area at PHX.  It can be an absolute "zoo" there as the space is way too small for the number of passengers that can crowd around for flights there.

 

My own recommendation would be to buy seats if you are in coach and can't pick them out for free via some kind of status.  It's a long flight and I personnally wouldn't want to get jammed in the middle of mutliple passengers.

 

Enjoy your trip.

 

 

[Zach1213]

On 5/13/2023 at 3:54 PM, SelectSys said:

If a mechanical issue occurs it would probably take BA a while to respond as they only have one flight a day to and from Phoenix.  

My guess would be they would lean pretty heavily on Oneworld partner AA for any mx work in PHX. AA and BA are both operating 772s with RR engines (though I think BA may have both RR and GE engines on their 772 fleet, not sure) so I would like to think maintenance issues would be more easily solved than in many outstations. 

[SelectSys]

2 hours ago, Zach1213 said:

My guess would be they would lean pretty heavily on Oneworld partner AA for any mx work in PHX. AA and BA are both operating 772s with RR engines (though I think BA may have both RR and GE engines on their 772 fleet, not sure) so I would like to think maintenance issues would be more easily solved than in many outstations. 

Maybe being in Phoenix helps somewhat and I didn't assume that the flight wouldn't go, only that a mechanical delay could take a while.  All bases/stations aren't created equal and while AA has significant operations in PHX only one flight is with the 777 as far as I know.  The resolution of a mechanical problem could require shipping in parts and/or staff from LAX or maybe DFW.  It really depends on BA's contracts.

[Globaliser]

4 minutes ago, SelectSys said:

It really depends on BA's contracts.

 

About which we shouldn't speculate without knowledge. Not least is the fact that one contract is the Joint Business Agreement between AA and BA (and others): the trans-Atlantic operation is basically a joint venture.

 

Anyway, following the "only one flight is with the 777" logic would lead one to avoid flying BA to places where the native airlines don't operate these types at all. Yet I couldn't count the number of times that I've seen "SAA maintenance" hi-viz jackets visiting the flight decks of BA 747s and 380s at JNB, when they were types that SAA has either never operated, or not operated for very many years.

[SelectSys]

8 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

 

About which we shouldn't speculate without knowledge. Not least is the fact that one contract is the Joint Business Agreement between AA and BA (and others): the trans-Atlantic operation is basically a joint venture.

 

Anyway, following the "only one flight is with the 777" logic would lead one to avoid flying BA to places where the native airlines don't operate these types at all. Yet I couldn't count the number of times that I've seen "SAA maintenance" hi-viz jackets visiting the flight decks of BA 747s and 380s at JNB, when they were types that SAA has either never operated, or not operated for very many years.

Regardless of contracts, I do have a very good idea of flight operations at PHX which was the basis of my comment. PHX is completely dominated by A320 and 737 aircraft from AA and WN with a small smattering of other types - mostly regional jets.  I can't see it as being economic to store too many parts and people with deep 777 experience in PHX.  BA and AA would be similarly challenged with maintenance issues on there once a day 777 service from PHX.  This is the key point.  Even at my home airport of SAN, I have needed to wait on parts being shipped down from LA to get a plane fixed.

 

BTW - JNB is a completely different aiport with different operations when compared to PHX and isn't a useful comparison.  JNB is served by many airlines with long haul flights and a large mix of wide body aircraft on a dialy basis.  It also totally makes sense for SAA to sell maintenance services there for other airlines.  I seriously doubt very few carriers could make the business case to set up a maintenance shop in South Africa as an in house excercise.

[Globaliser]

1 hour ago, SelectSys said:

I can't see it as being economic to store too many parts and people with deep 777 experience in PHX.  BA and AA would be similarly challenged with maintenance issues on there once a day 777 service from PHX.  This is the key point.

 

BA didn't do badly at PHX when it was flying 747s there. Somehow, someone managed to fix all the problems. How long is it since AA last operated a 747?

[SelectSys]

2 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

BA didn't do badly at PHX when it was flying 747s there. Somehow, someone managed to fix all the problems. How long is it since AA last operated a 747?

You still seem confused by my oriiginal post and 747's have nothing to do with anything. 

 

A better line of inquiry related to my post would be to think about dispatch rates for aircraft.  Dispatch rates for modern aircraft are very high with 777's being close to the top in terms of dispatch reliability.  I know that the 777 fleet dispatch rate is over 99%.  However in the unlikely event that there is an issue, the time required to fix the problem would likely be higher in PHX than in an airport like LHR or LAX. 

 

Certainly I waswilling to play those dispatch odds as I recently took the PHX to LHR flight on BA myself without incident.  However if you turn out to be really unlucky, you might find yourself waiting longer than in some other places to get underway.

[Globaliser]

9 hours ago, SelectSys said:

You still seem confused by my oriiginal post and 747's have nothing to do with anything.

 

Then you are not understanding the point. On your logic, BA's performance at PHX would have been abysmal when it was operating 747s there (many of them pretty old by then), because AA didn't operate 747s at PHX (or at all) and it would take a long time for BA to get trained personnel and parts over from London or wherever to fix problems.

 

It didn't happen like that, because the industry doesn't work like that.

[SelectSys]

8 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

Then you are not understanding the point. On your logic, BA's performance at PHX would have been abysmal when it was operating 747s there (many of them pretty old by then), because AA didn't operate 747s at PHX (or at all) and it would take a long time for BA to get trained personnel and parts over from London or wherever to fix problems.

 

It didn't happen like that, because the industry doesn't work like that.

Nope - you are conflating general performance of a particular service route with what happens in the event of a problem.  The fundamental reason BA'a and AA's respective 777 performance in PHX works is because the aircraft itself and the underlying MRO practices for both carriers are good resulting in very high flight dispatch rates in excess of 99%.  These high dispatch rates allow both of these carriers to successfully serve airports that have limited on-site MRO resouces.  However when a problem occurs, it is easier for any carrier to fix that problem in an airport with significant type operations and support facilities than one that doesn't have as much.  Again, it's just not economic to store people and parts everywhere for the airlines or any other industry.     

 

The attached link covers a disturbing instance where a plane needed to be pulled from service for a crazy reason yet demonstrates the point I am making.  In this case BA was able to swap aircraft.  I am pretty sure BA would have had a lot more difficulty in responding to this event if it had happened in Lagos rather than in London: https://liveandletsfly.com/passenger-defecates-british-airways/

 

Here's another one where BA decided to return to London rather than having a broken aircraft on the ground in the Mauritius: https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/08/passengers-on-flight-to-mauritius-returned-after-technical-issue-17898824/  BA knows it was much better to return home than have an airplane requiring service many thousand miles from home.

 

Finally, it doesn't even have to be long haul as this flight from Europe to the UK suggests where maintaince issues and prudence can lead to much longer delays:

https://liveandletsfly.com/29-hour-delay-british-airways/  I could see BA swapping aircraft if this had happened at one of their main UK operating bases.

[Globaliser]

The plural of anecdote is not data. PHX is neither LOS nor MRU. And the NAP incident demonstrates that incidents could happen even to a local airline at PHX on a short-haul aircraft.

 

Your proposition is that BA could find it more difficult to respond to a maintenance problem at PHX than a local airline would, because it's an airline based a long way away. The suggestion is that this is a potential reason for thinking that BA might be less dependable. That might be true if BA would have to ship in engineers and parts from London to fix the broken aircraft. But that's not how it would work.

 

And that just looks at the aircraft side of the situation. For the OP's route, the commercial position is that BA is not a separate airline from AA. There is one joing business that one might call "AA-AY-BA-IB", so the OP would have the commercial protection of knowing that there are many other ways of getting to their destination - similar to the position if they were flying entirely within the network of another airline.

[ldubs]

On 5/10/2023 at 6:17 PM, azgrandmax3 said:

We would like to know if British air  is dependable in the past we weren't happy with it

 

Gosh I hope so.  We booked with them for the first time for a flight later this year.  So far the experience has been kind of like dealing with a discount airline.  Slow web site.  Seats have been changed a couple of times.  They keep asking for the same info to the point we have called twice to make sure their records are correct.    

[FlyerTalker]

On 5/10/2023 at 6:17 PM, azgrandmax3 said:

We would like to know if British air  is dependable in the past we weren't happy with it

 

Of course, since we have NO idea of what caused you to be unhappy, it is difficult to address your concerns.

 

And exactly what are your criteria for "dependable"?  Operationally, ground service, cabin service, hard product?

 

 

[LuckyStar]

We flew BA in 2015 to Europe.  It was awesome.  Only downside was layover at Heathrow.  Hate that airport.  Yes, it's been a while but I've heard similar stories as recently as a few months ago.  

[Zach1213]

11 minutes ago, LuckyStar said:

We flew BA in 2015 to Europe.  It was awesome.  Only downside was layover at Heathrow.  Hate that airport.  Yes, it's been a while but I've heard similar stories as recently as a few months ago.  

I frequent Heathrow at least monthly, if not more, and have a very love-hate relationship with it. Most of my travel is now located within T3 and T5, and I actually enjoy going between the terminals because of the views of the planes from the airside buses. The sheer number of destinations around the world that can be reached from LHR is just fantastic, and transit to/from the city has so many options for various budgets and timeframes. But, of course, it can be busy, it can be crazy, it can be frustrating, and all of the other things that come with many global hubs.