Trip Report: British Airways, Edinburgh to London Heathrow (July 2019)

Trip Report: British Airways, Edinburgh to London 
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I was traveling to Edinburgh from London, and on the outbound I choose to travel by train but for the return I wanted to travel by plane.  British Airways, RyanAir, EasyJet, and FlyBe all fly between Edinburgh and London but only Flybe and British Airways (BA) fly to London Heathrow.  I wanted to fly into Heathrow as I had another international flight from Heathrow the next morning.  Also, I had checked baggage and when adding that fee into the overall price the difference between BA and LCCs was not that significant (also, with BA you get 23kg checked baggage while most LCCs give you 20kg).  Booking the ticket on BA's website was very easy and my ticket included checked baggage, however my ticket did not include preselecting my seat (even though with the upgraded price it should have).  After booking my flight, it was easy to manage the reservation either through the website or through the app.

24-hours prior to departure I was able to check into my flight and select my seat assignment.  BA had already preselected our seats and luckily we were sitting next to each other, but we could also change the seats to any open seats in our cabin.  The ticket purchased included one checked baggage at 23kg and prior to check-in I could add another bag at a lower cost or add it at the airport at a higher cost.  We had a lot of stuff so I prepurchased another bag, checked-in, and received my mobile boarding passes.  Even though I checked-in online, I could later go to the computer and print my boarding passes as well.  When we arrived at the airport, the line to check-in was very long but the self-service kiosks had no line so we went there to check-in our bags.  We checked-in our bags, self-tagged them, and dropped them off to the belt with almost no interaction with anyone from BA.

After security we made our way to the crowded gate area and waited for boarding to commence.  Boarding was done via groups, with the first groups for Priority members and groups 3-5 for economy class.  We were seated in row 17 and following RyanAir's model, BA also boards from both the rear and the front of the planes with rows 16 and higher boarding from the back of the plane.  The enforcement of which side you board from is haphazard, as half of the rear of the plane boarded from the back while the other half boarded from the front; and BA should take note of seniors or others who would have difficulty going up and down the stairs instead of boarding directly through the jetbridge.  When we boarded from the back, there were two BA attendants there but neither of them made eye contact, neither were smiling or pleasant, and neither greeted any of the passengers.  We made our way down the aisle, put our carry-on bags up, and sat in our seat ready for take-off.  The BA attendant who was in the back came down to close the bins and was muttering to herself, somewhat loudly, about passengers behavior saying 'who is going to close this lid with the bags like this, seriously' and other such comments against the passengers -- poor behavior and service from the BA staff!

The operating aircraft was an Airbus A319 in a 3-3 configuration and the flight time was scheduled at 1hr 20minutes.  The seat pitch and seat width were decent given the seat pitch, however the seat was not very comfortable.  The seat itself was basic with no PTVs and had a pocket up top - for the magazines, the safety card, and the airline sickness bag - below had a tray table and underneath that had another pocket for your personal items.  It was a decent seat for a short intra-European flight.  There were video screens that dropped down throughout the cabin and the safety video was screened on these videos, and throughout the flight the flight path was shown on the video screens. There was no wifi and no screening of entertainment to your personal devices, so the flight path was the only entertainment provided.  Once we reached cruising altitude, the inflight service commenced.  Similar to LCC's, BA has started a buy-on-board service where everything from snacks to drinks needs to be purchased; nothing is complimentary, and I believe water also needs to be bought as I did not see complimentary water being handed out.  The FAs spent most of their service time in the front section of economy - those in 'economy plus' -  and given it was a short flight they did not have time to spend in the back section so just rolled quickly buy towards the back galley.  We started our descent into Heathrow, landed and deplaned, and then waited almost 45 minutes for our bags to arrive.

Overall it was a disappointing flight experience with British Airways.  On their intra-European flight it seems there is no difference between them and a LCC in terms of pay for extra services and buy on board product.  Given BA has to compete with LCCs on this route and with the train, one would think they would try and help them stand out by offering better onboard service but that is not the case.  Their fares are higher than both the train and the LCCs with the only advantage BA has is that they fly into Heathrow and are part of a oneworld alliance.  These two factors are not enough for me to choose BA again.