Airline: British Airways
Flight #: BA478
Route: LHR-BCN
Class: Club Europe
Seat: 5F
Date: Monday 16th March 20266
Back in March, with a few days off work, it was time for another trip. This one would be starting as many do, with a flight from London Heathrow, however, would be slightly different as I was fortunate enough to be flying with British Airways (BA) in Club Europe. Having used some Avios points to upgrade myself to BA’s European business class product, it would be interesting to see how my experience differed compared to my various flights recently with the airline in their economy class Euro Traveller cabin. And so, on a Monday in March, I was at Heathrow once again, ready to fly to Barcelona.
Having stayed the night at the Terminal 4 Holiday Inn Express, I had caught a bus from Terminal 4 round to Terminal 5 although, after paying £1.50 for a TfL bus I did then learn that there is a free ‘H30’ shuttle bus. My flight wasn’t until 0925, however I wanted to have a decent amount of time in the lounge, so had arrived at Terminal 5 around two and a half hours before departure. As I was flying in Club Europe, I was able to use the Business Class check-in in zone A to drop my bag and get my boarding pass, before heading to the northern security check point and making my way through the fast-track lane. Everything was painless and I was through into departures around 10 minutes after arriving at the terminal.
My next stop was British Airways’ Galleries North Lounge, the entrance to which is located right next to the exit of fast-track security. The lounge is BA’s largest at Heathrow with plenty of seating options, however it is also BA’s busiest and I couldn’t find any quiet corners to settle down in so ended up ‘out on the terrace’ (which is still inside the terminal building but ‘outside’ the main lounge). The lounge had a central area with a buffet hot breakfast, fruit and bar area, whilst there were also coffee machines, juice stations and pastries dotted around in different areas. With lots of flights departing before mine, the lounge did get a little quieter by the time I left, and overall was a good place to wait for my flight.
The gate for my flight was announced at 0833, and so I headed downstairs to gate A10c which turned out to be one of Terminal 5’s bus gates. BoardingNotBoarding started around five minutes later into the little area behind the desks and we were released onto the bus around five minutes after that. The obvious issue with bus gates is that priority boarding actually hinders you, as the first onto the bus often end up being the last off, although I did manage to position myself close to one of the doors without blocking it. Our aircraft was parked on stand 525 at the southern end of terminal 5, between it and the southern runway and after a circuitous bus journey, I stepped onboard at 0856.
The aircraft operating my flight to Barcelona was G-EUYT, a 12-year-old Airbus A320-200 which had had its first flight in February 2014 and had operated for BA throughout its life. Having night stopped in Düsseldorf, it had operated BA941, the 0705 departure from the Germany city and had landed back at Heathrow at 0723, giving it a couple of hours rest before our flight. Onboard my seat was 5F, a window seat on the right hand side, a couple of rows forward from the back of the Club Europe cabin. As with most European airlines, BA’s European business class seats are the standard 3-3 configuration economy seating just with the middle seat always free and, in this case, a semi-fixed table being provided. This allows BA some flexibility based upon demand, with between 3 and 8 rows of Club Europe being available on the Airbus A320-200.
With boarding complete at 0920, our flight crew made the standard pre-flight announcement advising of a predicted flight time of one hour and 36 minutes with a cruising altitude of 37,000 feet. They also advised an issue with one of the ground vehicles which was being fixed but would delay us pushing back slightly whilst it was sorted. We ended up pushing back at 0935, 10 minutes late, and began our taxi at 0941, which took us up between Terminal 5A & 5B, along the northern side of the airfield to and passed four Emirates Airbus A380s, the most I’ve seen at Heathrow at once, which were parked up following the disruption in the Middle East. As we joined the queue for departure, G-EUUD departed to Naples as BA534, followed by Air India’s Airbus A350-900 VT-JRA departing on AI162 to Delhi. We then managed to queue jump ahead of G-TTNE waiting to depart on BA712 to Zurich and took off from runway 27R at 0956, and I was able to get a good view of Windsor Castle before we climbed into the clouds.
As we emerged above the cloud bank, around five minutes after take-off, the cabin crew closed the curtain between Club Europe and the rest of the aircraft, with the onboard service beginning a few minutes later. Breakfast was a choice of a Full English; smoked salmon; or an omelette with all being accompanied by a mini croissant; berry yoghurt and a bread roll. I went for the Full English which consisted of a sausage, single rasher of bacon, mushrooms, a tomato and genuinely some of the best scrambled egg I’ve tasted. All I’m saying is that some hotel breakfasts need to take a look at themselves if airline food can produce such good scrambled egg. There was also a full bar service available, although with it only being just past 10am I decided to stick to coffee. The cabin crew looking after Club Europe were both very friendly and attentive, with there always being an offer of ‘anything else?’ as they passed through the cabin.
With the cloud bank clearing over southern France around 1000, I was able to see that we were approaching the Pyrenees with Toulouse below us off to the right. Five minutes later we were crossing into Spanish airspace, before crossing over the coast between Mataró and Blanes. There was then a rather confusing left turn away from Barcelona which turned out to be a 270⁰ left turn to follow the coastline just inland, before we then made another S turn to take us out over the Mediterranean and line us up for approach. After all the twisting and turning we were lined up on a long straight in approach at 1129, giving me great views of Barcelona and the coast on the right as we descended towards the airport.
The final approach to El Prat airport took us over Barcelona’s port and warehouse district, with us crossing the El Llobregat river just before touching down at 1235 on runway 24R. It was then a very short taxi to terminal 1, with us parking next to EC-NRH, a Level Airbus A330-200, at 1239, nine minutes late. Whilst I was off the aircraft pretty quickly, it was a bit of a walk to passport control, and I joined the queue at 1247. Despite all the horror stories of passport control since the EES system came in, there was a bank of machines to allow pre-registration which for me was just a quick check given I’d registered in Munich. Then a standard e-gate before a manual passport stamp and I was through the other side and into baggage claim in just two minutes! Unfortunately, the time I’d saved in passport control was then taken away as I had a 30-minute wait for bags to arrive, which did make me wonder why I’d even checked my bag in the first place.
This was my first experience of BA’s Club Europe offering on a narrowbody aircraft and I’ve got to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Whilst the seat is just a standard economy seat, the extra space you gain does make a difference and this, combined with using the lounge before the flight, made the whole experience more relaxing and comfortable than normal. I was really impressed by the crew, who were excellent and the food was delicious, especially the scrambled egg. The only negative of the whole experience was the wait for my bag in Barcelona, and I can’t really blame BA for that.
Lounge 4*
Seat/Facilities 4*
Food 5*
Service 5*
Punctuality 4*
Overall Rating 22/25 (read about my rating system here!)
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