LHR to STR British Airways Economy

Airline:  British Airways

Flight #: BA918

Route:    LHR-STR

Class:    Economy

Seat:     14F

Date:     Wednesday 6^th August 2025

Back at the start of August we were lucky enough to be able to enjoy a few days away in southern Germany, on the shores of the Bodensee and close to the Austrian and Swiss borders. Given we were only away for a few days, we didn’t really have time to take the ‘adventurous’ route south and so took the more direct route by flying and then hiring a car. As such our holiday started at London Heathrow, with a flight to Stuttgart with British Airways.

We’d ended up staying the night at Terminal 4’s Holiday Inn Express the night before and so had a short journey one stop on the Elizabeth Line from Terminal 4 to Terminals 2 & 3, as Stuttgart is one of the destinations British Airways (BA) serves from Terminal 3 rather than Terminal 5. Arriving at Terminal 3 at 0610, it took just over five minutes to get through the check-in and bag-drop process, and another five to get through security. With walking time, we were arriving at the No.1 lounge around 0625, 15 minutes or so after getting to the terminal. The lounge was pretty standard No.1 lounge, with the added bonus of good views out across the southern part of the airport, including runway 09R/27L. As such, I was able to enjoy breakfast and a coffee whilst watching the arrivals on runway 27L, which at that time of the morning consisted mainly long-haul widebody arrivals.

Just before 0740 the gate was announced for our flight and we set off to find gate 24D, which turned out to be one of Terminal 3’s bus gates. Confusingly it is located after both gates 23 and 25, but we found it and arrived just as ‘boarding’ into the gate area started at 0745. Unfortunately, there was then a bit of a delay as our aircraft had been parked at BA’s maintenance base overnight and was being towed over, however we began boarding onto buses just after 0800. After a further delay setting off to the stand, we arrived at the aircraft at 0814, however the crew quickly had us all boarded with ‘boarding complete’ announced at 0820.

Our aircraft for the flight across to Germany was G-DBCE, a 20-year-old Airbus A319-100 which was originally delivered to British airline BMI in 2005. The aircraft joined the BA fleet, along with all of BMI’s aircraft, when BMI was purchased by BA’s parent company IAG in 2012, with BMI being merged into BA and ceasing to exist. Our flight to Stuttgart was to be the first flight of the day for G-DBCE, with the aircraft having arrived the previous night from Cologne. Despite the aircraft’s age, it had clearly undergone an interior refurbishment relatively recently as it featured BA’s standard ‘streamlined’ seats.

We were in seats 14E & F, however when boarding was announced as complete, we discovered that 14D was empty, allowing us to spread out and have a bit more space. Row 14 has good window placement, although seemingly the view is mostly of the wing, and all the seats seemed to have reasonable leg room as the seat in front wasn’t digging into my knees! Unfortunately, despite boarding being complete, it took almost another half an hour for us to push back as the ground crew were having to find and remove bags belonging to some passengers who had either missed the flight or chosen not to fly. Beginning our taxi at 0857, we took off eight minutes later from Heathrow’s runway 27R.

Not long after take-off the crew began the onboard service, with everyone being offered a free blueberry oat bar and a small bottle of water. There was also a reasonably good selection of food and drink to purchase, so we also bought a coffee, hot chocolate and a trio of brownie bar snacks, which cost us a total of £11.40. With it being a nice, warm summer’s morning, it was hard to see much through the haze covering southern England, although I did catch a glimpse of the Isle of Wight in the distance as we headed for the south coast. The flight passed pretty quickly and just after we’d finished being served our drinks, the flight deck announcement came that we were passing over Frankfurt and had begun our initial decent from our cruising altitude of 33,000 feet.

Thankfully I was able to finish my coffee fairly quickly as at 1051 the seatbelt sign came on and we had to fold our tray tables away, with us touching down on Stuttgart’s runway 07 at 1106, 61 minutes after taking off from Heathrow. As we taxied in I was able to catch a glimpse of two DHL and one ASL Airlines aircraft on the cargo ramp, and there was a plethora of private and general aviation aircraft on the ramp next to the fire station. Parking on stand 9 next to Helvetic’s HB-JVN, we were off the aircraft 12 minutes after landing and had passed through passport control a few minutes later at 1125.

Whilst this was a pretty short flight with British Airways, it was comfortable and a pleasant way to start the holiday. Despite the delay to boarding and then departing, we only landed in Stuttgart one minute late, so I can’t fault the punctuality and the both the information provided and service in general from all the staff was really good. Its also a bonus that a water and small snack is provided, something that will cost BA very little but adds to the service and differentiates them from a low-cost airline. All in all, a great flight with BA.

Lounge              0*

Seat/Facilities     3*

Food                4*

Service             5*

Punctuality         5*

Overall Rating      16/25 (read about my rating system here!)