Report back on BA PHX to LHR
I have posted here in my capacity as SLF about our upcoming trip to Britain on BA. So for what it's worth I figured I'd report back after the experience.
No international travel for me since 2000 so no recent experiences to compare this with but these are my thoughts.
BA288 PHX to LHR 06/16/10, if I remember correctly.
The crew seemed positive and I have to say I had no complaints about the service. IFE worked fine and I enjoyed the selections. Spent a lot of time listening to some classical music and a radio station program about the adventures of Josef Haydn's head post mortem. Watched an epsiode of "Top Gear" about taking vehicles across South America. Both my wife and I enjoyed both meals and there were numerous refreshment runs between dinner and breakfast. The flight was smooth as glass all the way.
The only thing that marred it for us was a truly awful landing at Heathrow where for a few seconds I was quite certain we were going to crash. We were over the threshold floating down onto the runway when the plane rolled so severely to the left I could see nothing but grass out of the window. The pilot was obviously battling to get it level again and we touched down hard on the left landing gear and took some seconds for the right to hit the concrete which it did with significant force. Plane then lurched sharply to the right so much so that I was pressed hard against my wifes seat. She was sitting to my left.
I suspect some new 747 crew were being given practice at landing the type as I was surprised to see five flight crew board the plane in Phoenix and we were informed by the Captain that there were several extra pilots on board just after takeoff. The flight up till the last moments of landing had been incredibly smooth. It was as if the AP had had control right up till then and suddenly was disengaged and the pilot caught totally unawares.
Whatever the situation there didn't seem to be much in the way of wind at Heathrow when we arrived to account for it and there was certainly no applause for the pilot on this occasion.
The return flight BA289 LHR to PHX on July 04th was far bumpier though not too much to be uncomfortable. The service was still good by and large with both the meals and IFE being of good quality. Or at least the satisfied both my wife and I.
I say by and large about the service as there was one flight attendent who seemed to be one of the strikers. At least thats what I gathered from the snippets of conversation I heard between him and the other FA'.s. He did his job just fine and no complaints about that but I you'd been following the issues around the strike on PRUNE as I had it was obvious that he had issues with the company. As I said while it didn't impact his service to passengers I thought it was somewhat unprofessional to go on about such issues while on the job. But then again I only realised that is what he was doing because of what I learned on this forum. Not sure it would have been of concern to any other passengers.
The landing at Phoenix though was actually worse than the one in London because of all the low level maneuvering in the last ten minutes or so as the plane flew in a wide arc out east of the city over the Superstition mountains. I assume the plane was under some form of manual control at that point. There was so much change in speed, attitude and even altitude in the final minutes I actually thought I was going to throw up which as never happened to me before in a passenger jet.
As to wether or not I'd fly BA again. Don't know. Apart from two problematic landings, (which can happend anywhere anytime I suppose) the service was good. We had chosen BA as they had the only direct flight between Phoenix and London but for both of us 10 hours in an economy seat is proably too much. We may well end up trying a different airline in future if only to be able to compare.
- Peter.