A comfortable way to fly across the Atlantic but westbound flights are a bit of a challenge with young children. Service felt a bit inconsistent compared to other flights.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: A Birthday at the German Christmas Market
• Review: The Thompson Central Park NYC
• Exploring New York City with Kids
• Review: American Express Centurion Lounge – JFK
• Review: Singapore Airlines A380 Business Class JFK-FRA
• Taking the Train in Germany with Kids
• Review: Park Hyatt Hamburg
• Exploring Hamburg with a Family
• Enjoying the Hamburg Christmas Market
• Review: Radisson Blu Hotel Hamburg Airport
• Review: British Airways A320 Club Europe Business Class
• Review: British Airways Galleries North
• Review: British Airways 777-300 Club World Business Class (this post)
• Bonus: Video Review

Booking

As I mentioned in the Club Europe post, I booked this flight using cash as a roundtrip starting and ending in Europe. We’re just spending many months in the United States.

However, there is one item I didn’t mention in that post that I feel necessary to call out here. Regardless of how you booked your business class flights (cash or points), it will cost you extra to select a seat in advance of checking into the flight. You might think you will wait until checking in to select your seats, but if you’re traveling with others and want to guarantee sitting near each other, it’s an expense you’ll be forced to make. I don’t have a picture of the seat map charges, but you can easily top $150 per seat depending on where you want to sit in the cabin. Frankly, I think it’s ridiculous to charge this as an extra fee on top of the cash price of the ticket paid just to sit next to my kids.

Thankfully, I have Platinum status with Finnair, one of their oneworld partners, and that allowed me to choose seats for everyone in my reservation for free. But please be advised that there are extra costs to British Airways flights. There was a seat selection fee for the shorter Club Europe flight as well, but the fee there was much smaller and was similarly waived for those with proper elite status.

Boarding and First Impressions

Once we saw we needed to depart from the satellite terminal, we left the lounge and proceeded down a couple of escalators and onto a train. The transit took a good 10-15 minutes, so make sure you budget in the time to get to the plane. It certainly would have been much more convenient if we were departing the main terminal.

Once over in the satellite terminal, it was a quick walk over to our gate where we awaited to board the plane.

British Airways has done a good job with the refresh of their Club World business class cabin. Perhaps the colors are a bit sterile and unoriginal, but the cabin feels fresh and new. It felt a bit exciting to get onboard and find our new homes for the next 11 hours.

However, I must say that I realized my mistake at this point. Since we’re traveling with the kids, I needed four seats. Typically when the seats are arranged in a 1-2-1 formation, I will end up choosing the whole row unless there is some benefit to taking the middle seats, such as when we flew on Qatar Airways Q-Suites. I thought I was good here, until I realized the seats are actually staggered. The center seats are more forward than the window seats and are actually better aligned with the row ahead of it. I had all of row 9 booked, but really what I should have done was book row 9 for the center seats but row 8 for the window seats. Thankfully, Alex is mostly self-sufficient on planes these days and it didn’t bother him to sit separate from us, but it’s something to keep in mind as the seating chart doesn’t make this obvious on the British Airways website.

The Seat

I arrived at seat 9A to find bedding (pillow and sheets from The White Company) waiting for me. Perhaps in an attempt to show off all the storage, all the compartment doors were opened. There was a decent amount of storage of smaller items at the seat itself, but bigger items need to be moved up the overhead bins. Personally, I thought there was ample legroom at the seat (I’m about 5’10”). Since the cabin is still relatively new, the seat itself hasn’t shown any wear and tear and felt well-padded. I thankfully didn’t have any sores after the flight.

The seat also has a door that can be closed. Just don’t believe you’re going to get full privacy in here because it’s easy to see over the walls just walking down the aisle. That makes the seat door somewhat of a gimmick especially in this cabin since the center seats are staggered and you’re not directly across the aisle from another passenger. But the trend is to add doors to seats, so British Airways must have felt it’s worthwhile to add it just to check the box. I don’t feel it’s necessary on this flight given the cabin setup.

Peeking out from the same compartment that was holding the water bottle is an amenity kit, also from The White Company. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary here, but I must say I do like it when a pen is included in the kit to help fill out any immigration forms (not needed on this flight) or to allow the kids something to use for their drawings.

The one downside of the center seats being in the reverse herringbone design is how far apart the seats are from each other. Perhaps not too relevant if adults are in the center seats, but if you want to travel with a child, note that there can be some issues. First, the center divider gets in the way, making it difficult to help your child if they need something on their side or to help them use the entertainment system. The handheld unit does extend out, but it’s difficult to use if you’re attempting to assist from the other seat.

And then it’s also tough to hold hands. There were times during the flight (such as takeoff and landing) where Char wanted to hold hands. The best we could do was have her hold a finger. The seats were not truly intended for traveling families and more for adults to talk to each other from time to time.

Food and Beverages

Before takeoff, a flight attendant came by to ask if we wanted any pre-departure beverages. I’m sure you could guess which one was mine.

The cabin crew also started to take orders from the menu. The menu itself is fairly short but outlined what to expect for both meal services. I found it interesting that there wasn’t much information on the various teas they offer. When I think of Britain, the first thing I think of is tea. On Singapore Airlines, there is a whole section proudly listing all the teas available. But on British Airways? A small box saying Twinings Tea is offered but it certainly doesn’t suggest they’re proud of it.

For myself, I ordered the roasted sweet potato salad and the slow roasted short rib. I thought the sweet potato salad was fairly light and thankfully didn’t fill me up too much before the entrée came. But it’s fine here to skip the bread — it wasn’t warmed nor did it suggest it was freshly baked before the flight. The beef was pretty good compared to other beef dishes I’ve on planes. It reminded me a bit of beef stew and was perfectly slow cooked. I would absolutely order it again. To drink, I ordered a Gin Zing to enjoy before the meal service (mostly because of the name) and also a glass of rosé champagne to drink with my meal.

Here is where I have to admit I made another mistake. Perhaps foolishly, I didn’t pre-order a children’s meal for the kids. Surely, I thought, they must have something available that would suit the kids’ appetites. So I took a chance on the roasted cauliflower soup as the appetizer. Given what we knew of laksa, we assumed it would be a spicy dish. We asked multiple flight attendants if the laksa noodles are spicy and they all said it wasn’t spicy. One flight attendant even went so far as to mention they would never serve spicy food on their flights. So we ordered it, and can you guess how it went? It was very spicy. So while the flight attendants seemed friendly enough, they certainly don’t know their menu well. I attempted to offer the kids my short rib but they weren’t interested in anything but the bread.

The dessert, on the other hand, was enjoyed by all. The dessert tasted a bit on the sweet side, but it was a nice finisher to the meal.

The second meal service didn’t take place until just before landing. In between the meals, there is a self-serve section set up where you can grab some snacks. Since the kids weren’t a fan of the meal options, they did fill themselves up with some junk food. But note this was never restocked during the flight. If you don’t help yourself towards the start of the flight, it will all be gone by the end of the flight as the business class section is fairly large.

The second meal service was a lunch, which was appropriate given the flight landed in the afternoon. I chose the Cottage Pie for myself and the kids had the Artichoke medaglioni. The cottage pie was definitely on the heavy side but it was good. It’s a little dangerous to eat heavy foods on a plane, but given this was the second meal shortly before landing, I decided to take a chance here. The medaglioni visually looks like a larger version of ravioli, and so Alex was open to giving it a try. The artichoke flavor is a bit muted, so he wasn’t turned off by it. Char, on the other hand, was having a bit of a fussy eater moment and only ate it after scooping out all the contents.

In-Flight Entertainment and Wi-Fi

The entertainment system at each seat had a decent number of options for both adults and kids. It doesn’t offer the most robust selection of movies, but there is enough in here to survive the flight. It is still useful to bring your own devices for the kids just in case.

Wi-Fi pricing was a bit higher than the earlier Club Europe flight we took. I found it odd that the cost for messaging in particular was higher priced. I would think the messaging is not a strain on the routers, so the explanation could be that it costs more just because they can charge more. Full internet access costs more, as expected. I can’t comment on the speeds since the pricing just seemed to high for me to justify.

Service

Aside from the fact that this flight crew did not know the menu, I’d say that in general most of the crew was just going through the motions. There wasn’t any strong attempt to offer personalized service or form a bond with any of the passengers. They just did their thing and moved onto the next task. There isn’t anything specifically wrong with that, but it doesn’t create a memory to help this flight stand out more than the others we’ve taken. The service British Airways provides always seems to be a bit inconsistent and can vary depending on the flight crew a bit more than I recall with other airlines.

While we’ve experienced elevated service from other cabin crew and other airlines when traveling with the kids, we experienced no differentiation in service here. To be clear, I’m certainly not expecting better service just because I have kids with me, but other flight crews interested in at least engaging with the kids in some way. The cabin crew on this flight almost didn’t even acknowledge the kids existed and instead only talked to us adults.

The difficulty with this flight

I’ve already gone into some of the struggles with this flight, and some of it was self-induced. But one of the main issues is the timing of the flight itself, especially when connecting. We woke up around 5AM back in Hamburg to catch our connecting flight and this flight wasn’t due to land until 4PM in Los Angeles. There is a nine hour time difference between Hamburg and Los Angeles, and a long time to stay awake. If originating in London, it’s still tough, but you could make it work if you manage to sleep in a bit before departure. It’s a challenge to convince the kids they need to take a nap during the flight when it’s clearly daytime.

We managed to avoid jetlag on this particular trip, but next time I won’t be looking to connect on the way back from Europe. Either we manage to find a nonstop flight home or we first journey to the East Coast and spend a day or two there before returning home. Lesson learned.

Recommendation: Yes for adults but…

If I were rating this flight purely from the perspective of an adult, it meets everything I’m looking for in a business class flight across the Atlantic. Decent food, a comfortable seat, and decent entertainment. Sure, service could be better but as an adult who doesn’t need all that much from the cabin crew, it’s not the worst thing in the world to be missing. It’s a solid experience in total.

But when I look at this from the perspective of a parent of small children, the experience is a bit more of a mixed bag, starting with the extra seat selection fee that I view as a must if you have small children (and no elite status). On top of that, the timing of the flight is dreadful with the need to connect early in the morning and I feel that ultimately impacts the kids more than it does the adults. As alluded to in how I booked the flight, we will be flying British Airways again in 2023, so it’ll be interesting to see if selecting a meal in advance resolves the food problem for the kids. I’m hopeful for a much better experience next time, but the jury is indeed out on how good the experience is for children.

Have you flown on British Airways with your children? What has your experience been?