BA Kangaroo Route (+ a puddle jump) - what is it really like?

[Fantic125]

Preamble.


Approx a month ago I started planning my trip to our company HQ in Germany. Departure dates to and from ADL to FRA identified and sent off to our travel agency for quotes. After 15 different itinerary iterations I finally settled on the following;
​

• 
  [*=left]BA7431, ADL-SYD, in Y (World Traveller),
  [*=left]BA016, SYD-SIN in Y+ (World Traveller Plus),
  [*=left]BA012, SIN-LHR in Y+ (WT+)
  [*=left]BA902, LHR-FRA in Y (WT), and;
  [*=left]the same flights and classes for the return.

Why BA and why transit through LHR I hear you ask?

Not particularly through choice, but because it was $2k cheaper than any of the other offerings with Y+ for the long sectors. Even though it’s paid for by the company I still couldn’t justify to myself, let alone the Boss. So, BA it was.

Another reason I decided to go with BA was some recent threads about them had divided opinions about their service quality, hardware, etc. The last time I had flown BA was 10 years ago when my 2 travelling companions and I had a LHR-HAM flight cancelled, and the rather helpful BA counter staff at LHR told us we could wait two days until the next available flight, or make our own arrangements to get there.

Admittedly LHR was in chaos due to bad weather the night before which had prevented flights in and out, as well as a bomb scare at LHR an hour before we arrived that morning, but that’s another story. ​

 

[Fantic125]

Ok, flights ticketed so onto Qantas website to select seats. Initial allocation for my ADL-SYD flight had me in 11D. 6D was free, so I selected that until T-80 arrived and I was able to select 4A (or so I thought!).

The remainder of the flights (except my final return SYD-ADL) couldn't be selected through the QF site, so switched to the BA website (for which I couldn’t select or change my QF flights). I must say it was a reasonably well set up site and easy to use, particularly for seat selection.

After checking with Seat Guru, the following seats were selected;
​

• 
  [*=left]BA012 (747-400 & WT+), picked 12D (baulk head aisle),
  [*=left]BA016 (747-400 & WT+), liked the look of 29A (it’s classed as an exit row, but it is the same configuration as 80A/K on the QF380 where the seat in the true exit row in front of you is missing),
  [*=left]BA902 (767 & WT), was able to choose 27K, an exit row seat.

I thought it looked like a pretty good seat selection, and there was no charge for the exit row seats.​

 

[Fantic125]

Sunday morning the taxi arrives to take me to the airport. From home to ADL airport usually takes 30 minutes, depending on traffic.

Halfway to the airport I get a phone call from my wife to tell me we have no hot water, and the circuit breaker for the hot water service has tripped and she can’t reset it.

Great, these things usually happen when I’m halfway round the world and this time I haven’t even made it to the airport. Either trouble has shown their hand early this trip and the next two weeks will be stress free, or I’m doomed from the start.

I arrive at ADL airport and go to check in at the QF desk.

• Counter staff: Sorry sir, your FF number hasn't been entered into the booking. Your ADL-SYD seat is 11D.
• Me: WTF? Explained that I had done seat selection on ticketing and at T-80 on both my QF and BA website itineraries, and when I checked them before I left for the airport they still both showed me seated in 4A.
• Counter staff: Sorry sir, row 4 is showing as completely full.
• Me: OK. As it’s only a 1:50 flight I went with 11D, as the rest of my flights (selected through the BA website) had me in my chosen seats.

Annoyingly, as people boarded both 4A & 4B remained vacant for the flight, so I don't know what happened to my seat selection there. I’ll see what happens for my return flight.

 

[Fantic125]

BA7431 (Operated as QF750)
Scheduled Departure: 10:50

The flight departed on time, and during the flight we were offered the usual light refreshment (some muffin thing) which I declined as I had my sights set on lunch in the QF F lounge. Looking forward to the pork belly and maybe the club sandwich….
The flight landed at SYD 5 minutes ahead of schedule and deplaned fairly quickly.

I had queried at ADL whether I would be able to use the Qantas transfer bus because my flights were ticketed BA, but was assured that all OW ticketed flights were accepted. Sure enough, through the transfer gate opposite Gate 2 and down to the waiting area for the bus.Only had a short wait for the bus and we were whisked over to the International terminal.

With my Immigration card already completed and an Express Departures card from my extensive collection, Immigration and Security was a breeze. Battling my way through the duty free area fending off people offering free drinks and perfume samples :evil: I made my way to the relative calm of the QF F lounge.

Through the forum I had made arrangements to meet up with dodgyhack who was also travelling SYD-SIN-LHR on BA, but on opposite flights to me. I sat down to have a quick lunch (couldn’t see the pork belly on the menu) so decided for tuna sashimi and S&P squid.

Just as I was finishing I received an SMS from dodgyhack saying he was down in the J lounge, and after some polite pleading with the wonderful QF F Lounge staff I was allowed to guest him into the F Lounge.

We had about an hour to chat and for dodgyhack to have some lunch and a drink or two, before I headed off for a quick wander around to stretch my legs before getting onto my SYD-SIN flight.

 

[Fantic125]

BA016, SYD-SIN
Scheduled departure: 15:45
Seat: 12D, in WT+

Boarding began a few minutes late, however the ground staff managed to herd everyone onto the plane reasonably quickly. The plane itself was an oldish 747-400 with no air vents and the air conditioning switched off, so it warmed up fairly quickly. The flight itself was very full.

The cabin appeared quite dated and worn compared to some of the other carriers I’ve flown on, even compared to some of the LCC’s in India and China. Being a baulkhead seat it had the in-arm AVOD screen which (apart from being the original tiny screen) was so loose that the screen wouldn’t stay in place for the safety demonstration. I ended up wedging bits of my boarding pass in the joints of the swivel arm to get it to stay in place for the remainder of the fight.

Take off was on time, and not long after leveling out the cabin came through offering drinks and pretzels, with the meal being served around an hour after take-off. The choice was chicken or beef. I chose the chicken, and the person sitting next to me had the beef. I was satisfied with the meal, as was the person next to me, so no complaints there.

After the meal was served, a couple of drinks top-up’s were offered before the trays were taken away. Additional drinks were available after the meal service as well.


As an aside, not just on this forum but other places as well, the 3 main criticisms I hear about BA is the age of the fleet, the age of the crew, and the attitude of the crew.

I’ve already mentioned the aircraft and in regard to the other 2 criticisms, yes, the average age of the cabin crew would be higher than a number of other carriers, but as far as attitude went, this particular crew was very courteous and professional throughout the flight.
I personally don’t particularly care what age the crew are as long as the service is good, and on this flight I wasn’t disappointed.

 

[dodgeyhack]

Appreciate the pleading on my behalf =)
Glad to hear your experience on BA wasnt too bad. My report on BA Y will follow in about a week.

 

[Fantic125]

After a quick sprint to the (new) SIN QF F lounge to check out if the multiple posts and complaints about the changes to the QF lounges in SIN were justified (and to down a quick G&T or two), I was a bit surprised.

To me it looked no different to what the J lounge usually looked at, at that time of the evening. The only difference I could pick was the staff circulating with food offerings.

Mind you, I was only there for approx. 15 ~ 20 minutes so my perspective may not be a true representation compared to someone who has been there a few hours.

 

[Fantic125]

<Rant.>
Why do people queuing to enter the departure gates in SIN insist on forming a line directly out from the entrance, blocking people trying to walk through the terminal? Why can’t SIN ground staff either herd them along the wall of the departure gate, or put up some bollards to keep the walkways & travelator areas free?
<End of Rant.>

:evil:

BA012, SIN-LHR
Scheduled departure: 22:55
Seat: 29A, in WT+

The seat location I had chosen was quite good, with plenty of legroom due to only 1 seat in front of where I was seated, and the seat was offset to my right. The seat in front had a nice tray alongside the seat for various items to be placed after take-off. There was easy access for me to get out of my seat and through the gap in front of my seat without disturbing the person alongside or the person in front.

Thumbs up for me! (So I thought). I must compliment BA on their consistency.

Even though I was on a different airplane and a different section to my previous flight, plunking myself down into the seat I still had the same comforting feeling of settling down into a familiar sofa that’s been in the family for the past 20 years. Being a pseudo exit row seat it again had the in-arm AVOD screen. This one was much more solid, swinging up and locking into place without bits of boarding passes in sight, which was much better than the previous flight.

The only problem is that it didn’t work, ev en after two reset attempts. (just for my seat, not a system reset !:evil: ).

My one consolation was that I was one step up from the guy seated in 28D, who when swinging his in-arm AVOD system up to view the safety video didn’t even have a blank screen to look at. Either Harry Potter was on board with his invisibility cloak, or someone had removed it.

He was given an upgrade to J after takeoff where he stayed for the majority of the flight. Thankfully he returned to his seat to have breakfast with his wife seated in 28E, to complain about having to step over people stretched out and sleeping relatively comfortably. She was very sympathetic.:mrgreen:

 

[opusman]

Enjoying the TR!

Just one minor point - it's "bulkhead", not "baulkhead". Unless you baulk at sitting there I guess

 

[Fantic125]

Thanks opusman,

Bulkhead it is from now on.

(I do have an avoidance issue at times! )

 

[Fantic125]

We landed in LHR on time and parked at Terminal 3. After a reasonably long walk to the terminal transfer area and a short wait for the bus, the transfer to Terminal 5 was quite painless.

I had approx 1 hour to kill before my LHR-FRA flight, so I headed to ‘The Galleries First’ lounge. As I was still trying to digest my breakfast I skipped on the food in the lounge and settled for a coffee and juice. The lounge itself appeared quite nice; equivalent to the SYD Int F lounge in comfort in my opinion.

A few minutes after the gate opened for my FRA flight I headed back into the terminal and down to the gate.

BA902, LHR-FRA,
Scheduled departure: 07:00
Seat 27K, in WT

​

Well, if I thought the BA 747’s were old, then my expectations plummeted to a new low with the 767. The CRT monitors mounted in the roof of the centre aisle for the IFE I swear were in black and white and the one nearest me didn’t even work at all! :shock:

A snack (ham & cheese roll) and drinks were offered, and the service from the cabin crew was again courteous and polite.
The flight was full, with businessmen in suits occupying approx. three quarters of the plane. My chosen seat was good, (exit row next to the window) and it was only a short flight (1:10).

So, for my trip over on the Kangaroo Route with BA I would agree the hardware is fairly dated but I didn’t experience any of the infamous BA attitude.

Let’s see in a week or so how they fare on the way back!​

 

[Fantic125]

I can't believe how quickly 2 weeks passes!

Left Aalen @ 09:45 this morning & drove to a friends place in Bamberg to meet up for lunch. After lunch drove from Bamberg to FRA to check in for my flights home.

I love the autobahns! Apart from the constant roadworks (which they do properly - unlike the constant patch-up jobs they do on South Australian roads), the autobahns are a joy to drive!

Anyway, check in at FRA was easy, however once again my selected seat (4C) for the QF SYD-ADL flight was changed to 7F. The seats selected for the FRA-LHR & LHR-SYD flights were correct. Might have to ask when I get to SYD why?

 

[medhead]

I'm struggling to remember the exact circumstances. But I do recall my last international flights/booking having a weird thing were I could see my selected seat taken but could select a different seat. This was a mixed QF/BA booking. Maybe some sort of glitch were the person in row 4 for QF purposes is you, but it doesn't link somehow to the BA booking. Or something like that.

Good read so far.


Sent from the Throne

 

[Fantic125]

FRA wasn't very busy at the time, as I was able to get straight through immigration and into the JAL F Lounge without having to queue.

A quick shower was had, then settled down in the lounge for a couple of Erdinger's before the flight. I was the only person in the lounge for about 30 mins, then I was joined by 4 or 5 other people which with the size of the lounge started to make it feel crowded. Although it's the F lounge, there's not a great deal of difference between the J & F lounge apart from the size of the lounge. The food and drinks selection is basically similar, but it's still better than sitting out in the terminal.

BA911, FRA-LHR,
Scheduled departure: 18:40
Seat 09A, in WT

Boarding commenced on time, with a nice little bus trip out to the plane. Once on board we were notified by the Captain that due to bad weather our flight to LHR would be delayed by 20 mins. After a long taxi out to the runway, there was another 10 minute delay before take-off.
Once up in the air and the seat belt light was switched off, the cabin crew commenced serving an evening snack of pretzels & drinks. The plane was certainly much newer than the one over to FRA, and the cabin crew were almost friendly. :shock:

Before landing at LHR we were forced to do 4 laps above London until ATC could find a suitable slot for us to land. Unfortunately due to the weather you couldn't see the city, as it's usually quite impressive coming in over it on a clear night.

 

[Fantic125]

We landed in LHR in torrential rain and taxied to the gate.

Due to the delays with take-off there was only about an hour to transfer from T5 to T3 & get through security (which was a slow and painful process - only 2 of 6 scanners open, and the staff seemed more interested in catching up with what each other had done on the weekend than getting people through security) :evil:.

With the delays, it was straight to the gate for boarding.

BA015, LHR-SYD (xSIN),
Scheduled departure: 21:15
Seat 11J, in WT+

Once all the passengers at the gate were on board, the Captain announced that due to delays with flights into LHR he was still waiting on 19 other passengers to arrive. Ironically, their bags had already been loaded on the plane but they were still in transit somewhere in the airport. After a 20 minute wait the Captain decided to commence off-loading procedures for the bags, but was back on the PA a few minutes later to say he could see them starting to come through the gate.

As they were boarding, the Captain was back on the PA to announce that all the passengers were at the plane, and also made a comment about how effective Security had been in slowing everyone down tonight. :shock:

With the wait for the passengers we were advised there would another 10~15 minute delay until we could get a slot for take-off.

This is where I noticed a bit of a difference between BA and some of the other carriers I've been on.
With some of the other carriers the cabin crew would go through the cabin offering drinks or talking to passengers to make sure they are comfortable or to settle the nervous ones, but the BA crew stayed in the galleys and just chatted amongst themselves until the Captain asked them to prepare the cabin for take-off.

Just as the crew was about to start, the Captain was back on the PA (I was starting to dislike the sound of his voice by now...) to announce they had an indication light showing on the inner starboard engine, meaning they would have to shut it down and re-start it to check the indicator light went out. Thankfully it did, but then it meant another 10 minute wait to find us another take-off slot......

 

[Fantic125]

Once in the air and leveled off, meal service was provided. We were offered the usual chicken or beef; I went with the beef which, along with a couple of the red wines put me in the right frame of mind to settle down to sleep.

I woke 2 hours before landing in SIN, just before meal service, which I declined as we had caught up enough time to have us landing in SIN at the scheduled arrival time.

Once at the gate we offloaded fairly quickly. I stopped off at the foot of the escalators to the Lounges to buy a birthday present for my son, then it was up and into the F lounge (old J lounge). My god it was busy! :shock:
The staff were on the PA every few minutes asking people to remove their personal possessions off the seat alongside them so other people could sit down, which the majority of selfish people ignored.

I managed to find a seat near the water feature looking over SIN check-in counters, then went seeking food and drink. Drink wasn't an issue, but the food plate's were clearing within seconds of being placed down by the staff, and they were struggling to keep up. :shock: I eventually managed to get some food after 2 QF flights were called in quick succession, leading to half the people clearing out of the lounge and lightening the load.

Approx 20 minutes after that my flight was called, and it was down to the gate. The queue at the gate was very long and people were able to go through security and boarding pass check and straight into the plane. Unfortunately no beep at the boarding pass check for me, so it was back to 11J.

We departed on time, with take-off uneventful. Up in the air, the menu's were distributed with the choices being; beef or chicken risotto! :shock:
I chose beef again, which combined with some reds once again had me sleeping through to 2 hours before arrival into SYD.

Breakfast was served; full english or continental (I chose full english which wasn't too bad) and then the plane was prepared for landing.

Immigration and customs were relatively quiet, although there was a crowd starting to build behind me as I headed to immigration. No queues at the Smart-Gate, and my case was one of the first ones to hit the luggage carousel, which meant no queuing for customs either. I was directed to my favourite customs gate (#8), so it was straight out of the terminal and over to the domestic departures area.

 

[Fantic125]

I already had my boarding pass for SYD-ADL flight scheduled at 08:20, but when I got to the domestic transfer area I was asked if I would prefer the earlier flight (QF735).

You betcha!

I was given seat 10A (row 4 was full) and was also handed a luggage receipt for my bag. Looking at the luggage receipt, it held the answer to why my selected seats for the QF domestic flights hadn't happened in accordance with what I selected!

Occasionally when I check my bookings in my QF 'Manage my bookings' area I get two itineraries with two different booking references showing, but exactly the same flights on both itineraries. I usually only use the booking reference provided to me by our travel agent (QBT) to go in and do seat selection, advance travel information, etc and ignore the other booking reference.

In this case, the booking reference I had been provided by QBT (and had used to select my QF & BA seat allocation) was 3XS***, but the booking reference printed on my luggage tag was XXZ*** which was the other itinerary in 'Manage my bookings'! So now I just need to find out why there were two itineraries in the first place....

Anyway, arrived safely in ADL an hour earlier than anticipated so I was happy!

 

[Fantic125]

In summary, I found the overall BA experience to be OK. I wasn't overly-enjoyed, or overwhelmingly disappointed with the experience.

The planes I flew on were relatively old but functional, and the cabin crew were courteous and provided suitable service. I got to where I needed to be on time, with relatively little fuss. For the price I paid (just over $4k for the flights) I would have to say my expectations were met.

Would I use them again? Possibly, if the price was right. Going through LHR is a pain, so if I had the choice I would avoid it, but not at the additional cost of $2k.

Would I recommend them?

YMMV.

 

[Andyzx]

BA016, SYD-SIN Scheduled departure: 15:45 Seat: 12D, in WT+

Nice TR Fantic. Was interested in your comments on the old / tired 747. Checking the BA Source BA16 was, if I got the dates right 9/09/2012 G-CIVE B747-400 BA16 14F/52J/36W/235Y which is has been fitted with new F and is a much newer plane, obviously no recondition of the rest of the cabins

Your BA12 from SIN 09/09/2012 G-BNLN B747-400 BA12 14F/70J/30W/177Y a Hi J config also has been fitted with New F. Did you prefer the sitting in front of the J section behind F on BA12?
Cheers