A first class experience

For our first flight from Seattle to London we flew First Class on British Airways which neither Craig nor I had ever flown before. After flying it though, it will be difficult to fly Economy again.

Here’s a dissection of the flight:

The meet and greet

When you first arrive at the plane and show your boarding pass, you are personally escorted by one of the senior cabin crew members to your seat. The crew member then offers to take your coat which they place into a closet until the end of the flight.

Pre-flight service

Even before the flight takes off the ground (i.e. while taxiing), you are offered a glass of orange juice, water or champagne and a plate of mixed cashews and macadamia nuts. You are also offered a set of pyjamas and given a velvet boxed toiletry kit containing a velvet eye mask, eye cream, moisturizer, lip balm, mouthwash, ear plugs and a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Seats

In BA First class on a Boeing 777 (which is used from Seattle to London), there are only 14 seats in the following arrangement:

I had seat 2A and Craig had seat 2E.

The seat also has a personal reading light, coat hook, laptop power outlet and a small seat at the end for another person so you can easily converse if you wish.

Each seat also has its own personal overhead bin. However, much like in a lower class, other people end up also putting items into your overhead bin unfortunately.

The seats have adjustable lumbar support and can be converted into a flat bed for sleeping.

A First Class seat:

The seat controls:

 

The seat as a flat bed:

Looking towards the end of the bed (which is also the small chair):

Food

In First Class, the food service is way beyond that offered in Economy Class. The service is effectively silver service with tablecloths placed on the table, personal salt and pepper shaker, side plates, cloth napkins, and white china.

The menu offers a choice of starters, a main course, and dessert as well other other things such a cheese plates and gourmet snacks like an asparagus risotto. There is also a wine list with a choice of about 10 wines to drink either during the flight or to accompany a meal.

The food is also presented very well as can be seen below.

Dinner

The starter was a oven-roasted tomato salad with endive and braised fennel:

Main course was Mark Edwards’ sake-braised guinea fowl with sansho pepper pineapple chutney:

Dessert was warm peach crisp with vanilla ice cream:

Personal pot of peppermint tea (and a creme brulee chocolate) to finish the meal:

Breakfast

Breakfast started with a plate of fruit, personal pot of team and a choice of pastries:

This was followed by pancakes with maple syrup:

Toilet

Even the toilet in First Class is an improvement over those in lower classes. The toilet is more spacious (at least compared with an Economy Class toilet), has a changing seat which goes over the normal seat to make it easy to put shoes, etc. on and even has disposable real cloth hand towels to dry your hands with.

Staff

In First Class, there are about 4 cabin crew members to service the 14 seats which means that each person gets personalized service and there is always a cabin crew member available to help you.  Additionally, the cabin crew are the more senior members such as the pursers, etc.

Additionally, the staff have a no pressure approach and you are free to eat, drink, etc. at your own pace.

How to the confuse the cabin crew

According to our boarding passes, Craig has the window seat (2A) and I had the interior seat (2E). We decided to swap seats so that I had the window seat and he had the interior seat. This caused a bit of confusion amongst the cabin crew as they personalize the service so often Craig was called Mr Sztainbok and I was called Mr Clemo by various members. This was only a problem however momentarily until we had interacted with each crew member.

Arrival lounge

Normally there is an arrival lounge available in Heathrow where you can have clothes pressed, have a shower and a hot breakfast and even complimentary spa treatments such as facials and massages. Unfortunately for us, the arrival lounge and spa in Terminal 1 where we were had closed the day before in preparations for British Airways’ move into Terminal 5.