London to Washington has long been a busy route for the transatlantic carriers, which explains why it was one of the first to see the A380. Thanks to an overbooked cabin, and my recently acquired British Airways Club Silver status, I was lucky enough to be upgraded from Premium Economy – my booked cabin – to Club World (Business Class) on the A380. It made for a comfortable daytime hop across to Dulles, so let’s get into why.
Flight Details
Flight No: BA0217
From/To: London Heathrow (LHR) to Washington Dulles Airport (IAD)
Departure time: 09:40
Aircraft: A80-800
Ticket Class: World Traveler Plus, upgraded to Club World
Seat: 11G
Flight time: 8 hours
OneWorld Tier Points: 140
Check-in & Fast Track
I was flying solo on this trip, so I arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 hoping for a relaxing flight and praying the World Traveller Plus cabin wouldn’t be rammed. Check-in at T5 is usually painless, not least because there are about 100 desks I could’ve used. It was a Sunday morning and most zones had barely any queue, so I just picked the nearest one. After receiving the rather delightful news that I’d been upgraded, I headed for North Fast Track security, which BA offers to passengers in Club or First, Silver and Gold members of The BA Club, and Oneworld Sapphire and Emerald members. Again, there was no queue. I cleared the metal detector without a beep and stood outside the North Galleries lounge within five minutes of leaving check-in.
Lounge
As BA’s home base, you’d expect the business class lounges to be good. Happily, they are. In fact, all three are. Terminal 5 has two BA Galleries lounges in the main A terminal: Galleries North with 400 seats, and Galleries South with 800. There’s also a third lounge over in the B satellite terminal. I picked North because it gets more natural light than Galleries South and doesn’t usually feel quite so toasty.
The Galleries lounges are mostly self-service, with a hot and cold buffet roughly matched to the time of day. At 08:30, that meant breakfast. I held back, as I knew Club World food was coming later. Tea and machine coffee are available, alongside chilled fresh juices. If you believe it’s always 17:00 somewhere, or that flying and wine are natural bedfellows, Galleries has you covered. Expect the usual line-up of three white and three red guest wines, plus house champagne on request. That’s one of the few things staff will bring to your table.
At pretty much any time of day, the lounge is usually busy. You might struggle to find a table at first, but people are constantly coming and going, so one normally frees up fairly quickly. I tend to aim for the stools along the far window, looking out over the north runway. If the lounge gets a bit too hectic, I’ll head outside to the terrace instead.
At the time of writing, lots of showers were available in the in North Galleries, a few less in South Galleries, and none over in the B terminal.
Boarding
Boarding was well underway by the time I’d reached the gate. The A380s often sit at the C gates, which means a 15-minute dash, or a 30-minute amble if you’re feeling leisurely, from the main terminal. Document checks were quick, helped by the priority lane still being open. There were two air bridges onto the aircraft: one straight to the upper deck, and mine to the lower deck. By that point, boarding had properly started, so it was a slow shuffle to my seat.
Seat 11G was just to the right as I boarded, and I was surprised the cabin looked about the same size as one on a 777 or 747. When a member of the crew came over to say hello, I discovered there were two more Club World cabins upstairs. I asked if I could have a look, and they kindly took me through the First cabin to the front staircase and up to the top deck. Sure enough, Club World seats stretched on and on.
Aircraft Configuration
Aircraft type: Airbus A380-800
Number of classes: 4
Number of seats in flying class: 97
Position: Lower deck, just behind first class (14 seats)
Amenity Kit
The amenity kit came in a sack-like bag that looked strangely like the bag I used to keep my PE kit in at infant school. My first impression was it looked a little cheap for business class. Inside were socks, an eye mask, ear plugs, tooth paste and a toothbrush. Elemis moisturiser, hand lotion, and lip balm completed the kit.
Seat
The A380 business class seats were the old British Airways Club World 2-4-2 front- and backward-facing lie-flat seats. If you want to read about the newer BA Club Suite seat, then try our British Airways 777 Club Suites Heathrow to Male Review or BA A350 Club Suites São Paulo to London Review.
Because of the dense configuration, not every seat has direct aisle access. Most window passengers, plus the two seats right in the middle of the centre section, have to climb over their neighbours to reach the aisle.
There’s a shoe drawer at floor level, but no other useful storage around the seat. Unless, of course, you’re in a window seat on the upper deck, where huge lockers sit beneath the windows. I was in 11G, so no such luck. My stuff was either in the drawer, on my lap before inevitably sliding down the seat or onto the floor, or up in the overhead bins.
With an aisle seat, you can’t really leave anything on the floor either, as other passengers need to climb over you to reach their seats.
Once in the seat, I found it very comfortable, a bit like a low armchair and basically perfect for a day of films. There’s a fold-down foot stool, and the seat adjusts electrically into a lie-flat bed, with the foot stool becoming the end of the bed.
Then I caught my neighbour’s eye, and things got a bit awkward. No matter where you sit in Club World, you’ll always have another passenger facing you in the adjacent seat. There’s a frosted Perspex divider between the seats, which you can raise after take-off. However, it stays open when the aircraft isn’t at cruising altitude and moves up and down a lot during meal service. Once you’re watching films or sleeping, the divider stays up, and you can almost forget there’s someone on the other side.
What is the best seat in the British Airways A380 Club World cabin?
Not all seats are equal on British Airways A380 Club World, and your choice can easily affect how comfortable you are. You can’t go far wrong with any upper deck window seat, although they are rear-facing. I never notice the difference, but some people dislike the feeling during take-off. Personally, I think it’s worth it for the seven-plus hours of extra comfort between take-off and landing. The upper deck is quieter, with less engine vibration, and the window seats feel properly private – nobody climbs over you or serves across you. You also get extra storage bins along the ledge. Any window seat is a good pick, but I’d choose 52A or 52K.
Also, check-out the size of the washrooms in the upstairs cabin!
In-flight Entertainment
The in-flight entertainment system used a hinged touchscreen that had to be folded away for take-off and landing. In practice, that means no films until the seat belt sign goes off, and then no films again once it comes back on for landing. Given taxi, take-off and landing can easily swallow an hour of a flight, I always prefer gate-to-gate IFE with a fixed screen.
The film selection was solid, with 10+ recent Hollywood releases and plenty of classics. There were also episodes from box sets, natural history documentaries, a decent selection of kids’ content and a handful of audio channels.
One common problem with these hinged screens is the hinge itself. If it gets loose, you can end up with a flapping screen for the whole flight, which is every bit as irritating as it sounds. Thankfully, the hinge on 11G worked perfectly, so there was no transatlantic screen-flapping nonsense. I watched Kingsman before having a nap.
The standard-issue headphones were noise-cancelling and perfectly adequate. As with most airline headphones, the fit was never going to match my own, and they did get uncomfortable after a while.
Drinks Service
If there’s one thing BA cabin service are good at, it’s keeping your glass topped-up! After a welcome glass of champagne before take-off, I opted for a Bloody-Mary on the first drinks round; it was only 10am after all! After that, I got stuck into the wine list alongside lunch.
BA offered 2 red and 2 white wines in Club World. I went 100% USA, starting with the Elk Cove Pinot Gris before sampling the Lodi Zinfandel. Both were delicious. Naturally, second glasses were poured.
Food Service
Lunch was served about 90 minutes into the flight and was a 3-course affair consisting of a hot or cold starter, hot main course, and dessert. I chose:
- Seasonal salad
- Braised beef
- Chocolate cheesecake
As you can see from the picture above, food presentation in Club World wasn’t the best. It all tasted fine, although there was always a reminder in the appearance and texture that this was aeroplane food and definitely not an attempt at “fine dining”.
The second meal service was afternoon tea, with a small plate of finger sandwiches and a scone, served with either tea, or something a little stronger. I felt this was the right type and quantity of food, given it had only been 4 hours since finishing the last meal. Overall presentation of this was far better than lunch, which left me feeling like BA have an opportunity to make some simple tweaks to the Club World hot meal service that would leave a better impression.
Arrival
On landing, we had a fairly long taxi to the stand before disembarking the aircraft down the air bridge and into what I can only describe as a wheeled container with windows. This rather bizarre contraption is known locally as a People Mover, was imagined by the Dulles airport architect as a how airports would be in the future. You can read more about these interesting “moving rooms” here. After the drive across the tarmac, we disembarked and joined the immigration lines.
BGI Verdict
For BA, it was good. A380 is a great aircraft to fly – spacious, smooth ride and quiet. As far as business products go, it was functional. The transatlantic London routes offer a fairly low bar when it comes to business class comfort. Virgin probably leads this market with its marginally better Upper Class product, although Virgin biz has its own shortcomings. Compared to the rest of the world, BA’s Club World really doesn’t compete. Qatar Airways, Emirates, Etihad, Singapore Airlines (the list goes on) all offer 1-2-1 lie-flat seats, all with direct aisle access. The overall cabin service was good, although the meal quality was average.
Does it represent good value for money? That ultimately depends on what it costs. If you bag a transatlantic run in Club during one of the many sales then I think it does represent value for money.
Update: All this may be set to change with the prospect of new Club Suites replacing Club World seats.
BG1 Tip
Sit upstairs on A380. If you want attentive service and need unobstructed access to the aisle, book seats B, D, G, or J. If prefer to be left undisturbed, go for window seats A and K.
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