After an entertaining couple of hours in the British Airways Galleries lounge in Newark, I then walked the short distance to the gate, an earlier flight than I had been anticipating. I was very impressed with how BA handled this, they made it easy not just to change flights but also to ensure that my seat reservations were carried over.
I don’t like the seats on this Boeing 777-300 aircraft, they’re too narrow for me. However, I was in an exit row on the aisle, which is my favourite, meaning that I did have plenty of space. The three seats were all taken, but I was fortunate that the person sitting next to me didn’t veer into my space once.
The crew members on this flight were exceptional, making an effort to build rapport with customers where they felt appropriate and being ever present. I’m rarely disappointed with the friendliness and engagement of BA crew, with the pilot making chirpy and positive announcements.
It’s fair to say that I had enough leg room.
The first drinks round took place around one hour after take-off and the crew member seemed pleased that I asked for Brewdog Jet Stream by name, so she gave me both cans on her trolley.
The crew member didn’t let me down with the Brewdog beer, she remembered me from before and pro-actively asked “would you like another Brewdog beer?”, which of course I did. So she went off on a mission and came back with another four cans, two raided from a different cabin, the other two from the trolley on the other side of the aisle. Apologies if anyone else wanted Brewdog Jet Stream, but the crew member was wonderfully hoarding them up for me. Incidentally, that’s the film Belfast on the IFE, a story about the violence in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.
Onto the food, these meals are catered in the United States and it all entirely met my expectations. I can’t quite remember what sort of chicken dish this was (and I probably wasn’t entirely sure at the time), but it tasted better than it perhaps looks. It comes with a couscous starter, a chocolate dessert and then some cheese and crackers. For an economy flight, which cost me just £220 or so return, I felt I had received excellent value for money with this whole arrangement.
I then thought I’d have a nap after enjoying the heap of Brewdog Jet Stream cans that they had given me.
I admit this wasn’t to my taste, the breakfast option was a cheese bagel or a cheese bagel with turkey. Very innovative. I don’t like the smell of certain melted cheeses and unfortunately this went into the bin, as seemingly did many of those given to other passengers. I rarely eat the breakfast options on aircraft as they’re not often appealing to me, but BA seem to want to provide some sort of hot option. It’s a shame they didn’t have a cold option of just a cereal bar or something, it’d likely be cheaper for them and lead to less waste.
I had a two hour connection before my flight to Dublin, but there was a long delay disembarking and then it was a bus to the gate which all took up time. I was moderately disappointed that this was all eating into, well, my eating time in the BA lounge, and I was partly wondering whether I might be able to miss my flight to Dublin and get a later one since I was in no hurry.
Still my favourite airline, although American Airlines aren’t far behind. Who needs Emirates and Qatar?
And off we go to Heathrow T5, where I’ll pick up my flight to Dublin in my next post.
