British Airways | Zurich - London | Economy Class… Is BA still relevant today?

[@jasongarufi8187]

Thanks for a great review of BA Ryan.

[@ryansofly]

No worries! Thanks for watching.

[@nilskyproductions]

Fantastic video man thanks for sharing! Quite impressive that the immigration staff are multilingual! Probably quite rare to see that down under haha! As always, keep em coming!

[@ryansofly]

Not just airport staff, but service staff in Zurich were mostly impressively multilingual as well. Thanks for popping by mate.

[@DeanLeadbetter]

I know What you mean. I live in Switzerland.

[@TravelSignal]

Great video. BA's hard product definitely leaves a lot to be desired, cramped and hard seats, buy on board, insufficient locker space (because so many people buy hand baggage only fares). But it's the soft product where they stand out, with fantastic crew. (Her skits may be outdated now but I still love Pam Ann!)

[@ryansofly]

Yeah their long haul crew has all the senior attendants who don't necessarily feel the need to please. Plus, they're all so worn out by the flight.

[@josephphillips9243]

Thanks Ryan. Enjoying this series. Only flew BA once, admittedly a long time ago from Sydney to London. It cost more than Qantas and there was more tape and bubble gum holding things together than a 3M and Hubba Bubba factory.

[@ryansofly]

Hahahahaha.... Yes for the Aussie flights, the BA crew are so worn out by the time they embark on their return journey there is little service. They do the bare minimum and disappear to sleep. The planes are, well, very used and abused. They've recently swapped the 777s with Dreamliners for the SYD run so things should be better.

[@alexmcwhirter6611]

That must have been one of BA's 747s. Reminds me of those 747-100s which PanAm operated until the end.

[@ryansofly]

@@alexmcwhirter6611 yes, I flew them on the 744 in 2005, then the 77W in 2017. Cabin crews on those 4 flights were really not interested in customer service.

[@jjjddd231]

Seems like this time you had a much better BA experience which is good. There is, I believe, still a lot of goodwill towards BA and it is an airline that I would preference if their scheduling suits me. I very much like what they have done to their business offering. On a side note, the collapse of Olympic was not all negative because it led to the formation of Aegean Airlines which offers one of the best economy experiences in Europe. If you were to fly Athens to London (or reverse) with Aegean you will receive a full meal service in economy which is uncommon these days and most likely get to fly with their very young A321 Neo fleet.

[@ryansofly]

BA's JCL is a little meh... polarising. The new offering should shut their critical up but gone are they days where they introduced bespoke inflight products. Yes, I remember when major EU airlines were cutting back, OA was still stubbornly serving full warm meals in economy class intra Europe.

[@lorraineperry8232]

Nice flight... I wonder if BA still uses the call sign "Speedbird" in their communications with other planes and CT's.....

[@ryansofly]

Yes, BA will always be known as Speedbird over ATC for as long as the airline is around.

[@_Tripsandtips101]

Switzerland is indeed reminiscent of Singapore in many ways, but especially language wise. Switzerland is 2/3 German speaking and Singapore is 3/4(?) Chinese ethnicity and Mandarin-speaking but other languages have provisions.

[@ryansofly]

Indeed.... I was born shortly after Singapore independence so the country was in a mess, third world squalid conditions. And the government frequently verbally sprouted shouts of aiming for a "Swiss standard of living" by 2000. This was all that was drummed into our heads. Now I know why. Lol... And yes, Singapore is extremely multilingual. I myself speak 8 languages!

[@geoffreyhansen8543]

I found British Airways to be very good between the UK and Australia in 2019. The main fault was that there wasn't much content worth watching on their entertainment system. The staff were exceptional.

[@ryansofly]

@@geoffreyhansen8543 the crew are normally very sullen on the return flight from Sydney because of how little rest they get on their layovers. BA remains unique as they are the only European airline to be still operating flights to OZ.

[@hlim431]

By the way Ryan, Switzerland has 4 national languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh (by 0.5% mainly in the canton of Grisons), so just add English for the linguistically challenged (not you btw :-) I am so impressed by your pronunciation e.g. Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese etc. Vegemite & marmite are SUCH an acquired taste... BA is just such a ho-hum Airline which can't hold a candle to Asian airlines (all Skytrax 5 star airlines are East or SE Asian not including Qatar Airways)

[@ryansofly]

4, that's what I thought as well. But numerous respondents have pointed out that it's actually 3. Romansh is only included when necessary in official documents. Haha thanks for your kind words. You know what I'm good at? Imitating. That's why I did growing up to the annoyance of my parents as I would imitate my overseas relatives in the way they speak. So I input whatever language into Google translate, if it vocalises... I regurgitate it into my videos. Also think it's respectful to speak those languages properly to the best of my ability and not to "Americanise" the words, if you know what I mean. Cheers... 🥂

[@LukeCrisp]

Great video mate! Keen to fly BA long haul via QFF partnership at some point.

[@ryansofly]

If you think QF is bad on long haul.... 😏

[@LukeCrisp]

@@ryansofly Haha! Only one way to find out

[@cheryll8008]

Thanks for this video. I only hear complaints about Ba flights lately. That's the thing about winter. Clothes too thick hahah. Eh very nice of the flight attendant

[@ryansofly]

So true! Suppose people in the UK bitch and moan about BA the way we do about QF. Expensive fares with shitty inflight products.

[@markinboy]

BA flight attendants are the saving grace to the product and service in their Euro Trash cabin.

[@ryansofly]

I don't disagree there! 😅

[@richardcaldwell9160]

Thank you Ryan, I guess I live in a bubble now, as flying in the 80's was pretty exciting & to think of paying for a cup of Tea seems a bit OTT. Having said that ZRH looks a great airport & BA will always have well deserved kudos. Cheers

[@ryansofly]

Glad I lived through travel in the 70s and 80s. I saw the last of the silver buffet trolleys in first/business class and experienced the transition into a from-galley-only service. I do miss the good old days when they plated a meal individually in front of you from a WIDE array of main meals. But I understand that's a lot of wastage.

[@alexmcwhirter6611]

But think back to how much airline tickets cost pre-liberalisation !

[@ryansofly]

@@alexmcwhirter6611 yesssss! It is comparatively cheaper to fly these days and especially London, fares are very much lower which is why I chose to fly home from there instead of Zurich. Can you imagine the most affordable economy class flight ZRH MEL was $2600 one-way. LHR SGN MEL cost me $1200 .

[@alexmcwhirter6611]

@@ryansofly Absolutely. One reason why canny travellers from mainland Europe will start from the UK (much depends of course and the route and class of travel). Yes UK has APD (air passenger duty) but that is waived for transit passengers.

[@timdouglas7948]

Nice work mate, my cousin was cabin crew with Sri Lankan for over 10 years who was retired at age, and whilst both you and I reside in a Western nation, we enjoy these freedoms. But I am pretty sure that both of our home country airlines have age restrictions on crew(which I agree with). Our tolerance for on most things declines as we age and as such we have the "grumpy farts and Karens" serving us beer at 36,000 feet with attitude. Not too sure if you would have got the free biscuit if your flight was at the end of their shift and not the start.

[@ryansofly]

Yes, jaded flight attendants are a constant issue with these western legacy carriers. Everyone needs to earn a living, and these jaded individuals don't know how to do anything else... Catch 22. Long haul flights to Australia (as I mentioned in the video) are especially tough on them because they only have overnight stops in Singapore and Sydney. Gone are the days where they stay for 36 hours at their hotels. So by the time they crew the return flight to SIN and LHR, they don't even have the strength to smile.

[@_Tripsandtips101]

Yeah, compared to even 5-10 years ago, I can no longer see any daylight between legacy European carriers and low cost carriers, especially in economy class. At least with LCCs, they charge you a reasonable price. And in your Qantas video showing the costs of hiring direct and via agency, European carriers are the godfathers of this trend. When Ryanair took off and more passengers (present company included) clamoured for low fares, that was the point of no return. Problem is many passengers demand freebies that were mainstay in the early 2000s.

[@ryansofly]

The cost structure of legacy carriers like BA is incredibly high. So they need to do what they can to stay alive. Even if this means pissing their passengers off by slowing cutting back on their offerings. London is also an absolutely open airport with airlines from all corners of the globe flying there with their shiniest planes and top tier products. BA has a tough fight.

[@_Tripsandtips101]

@@ryansofly which is why this video reminded me of your Qantas rant especially the part of where they source their labour. It appears to be a no-win situation for BA at least in the medium run because making them change their cost structure to match Ryan Air’s operating efficiencies will mean making sacrificing both the internal and external brand BA has been known for pre-LCC. Qantas faces a similar fight, as would other legacy carriers.

[@alexmcwhirter6611]

BA's advantage is that it serves Heathrow (plus Gatwick and London City). Gatwick excepted the LCCs like EZY/Ryanair/Jet2 do not serve the other two airport for one reason or another.

[@_Tripsandtips101]

@@alexmcwhirter6611, Heathrow’s passenger service charge is a nightmare on the pocket. It makes it difficult for RyanAir, et al to sustain their low-price brand when Heathrow’s charges are in the fare.

[@geoffreyhansen8543]

I'd love to see a review of Los Angeles (LAX) Airport and how to navigate it.

[@ryansofly]

@@geoffreyhansen8543 I do have plans to visit Honolulu in 2025. I'm sure we can squeeze LAX into the itinerary. 😏

[@rachkate76]

Nice to hear that flight attendant was empathetic towards nothing more embarrassing when your card doesn’t work for mysterious reasons! I often get ‘card chip error’ on my ANZ one and don’t use payWave because I’m old school. You sounded a tad nasally and under the weather in your London outro- maybe just the change of weather. Brisbane is looking a lot like London in terms of weather the last 6 months. Looking forward to seeing what snacky snacks you find in Vietnam! 🙂

[@ryansofly]

By the time we got to London, almost 2.5 weeks have passed with very little rest. So hubs and I were battling a throat infection and the occasional fever, but we pushed along. We totally collapsed into our hotel bed in Melbourne totally worn out. Lol...

[@alexmcwhirter6611]

Hello Ryan, another detailed and interesting video. Point is that these legacy carriers in mainland Europe really aim at connecting sixth-freedom traffic. They need transfer pax to fuel their long-haul networks. They are not so concerned with p-t-p traffic nowadays ... they leave that to the LCCs. I mean look at Lufthansa whose core brand serves only its twin hubs - other routes are hived off to Eurowings. KLM is a classic example ... no way could it exist without feed traffic. Hence onboard service, legroom etc has been cut back. Yes that was an older Airbus and that's why I suspect the lack of air vents above your seat. You see when that Airbus was built BA would have provided more legroom so the seating rows would have been different. BTW SAS is not on "the brink of collapse" as it is linking with AF/KL, quitting Star and joining Skyteam. You may have had good reason to fly into Heathrow but BA offers a better product on its London City flights. Seat pitch is more generous (34 ins I believe ... although the Embraers will be/have been reconfigured with a denser layout) and onboard catering was/may still be more generous and provided free of charge. Why ? Because the London City services are staffed by Gatwick-based crew. Sorry to be vague on these points but it's years since I last used London City. But overall you experienced a good and typical short flight within Europe so congratulations on this KZbin.

[@ryansofly]

I would argue most large international airlines are 6th freedom focused. I did look into LCY, but the fares were astronomical. Factoring in this one way flight into LHR and hotel stay, it still worked out waaaay cheaper than flying home from ZRH with LX/SQ.

[@alexmcwhirter6611]

@@ryansofly Indeed. LCY pricing is different to London's other airports. Some flights may cost less than those to LHR, some can be higher. Much depends on time of day, day of week. Years ago I flew LX sixth-freedom LCY-ZRH-BOM-ZRH-LCY. Certainly LCY scores on ease of access from Central London by Tfl/DLR and its facilities on arrival (speed, lack of queuing) are far superior to any other London airport.

[@chikinli1944]

相信有於亨利雀巢工作之員工乘搭英國航空到倫敦洽與談生意！

[@ryansofly]

哦？是吗？哈哈。。。

[@alanreynolds5631]

I think BA should consider having IFE on al flights of over 4 hours. Perhaps BA should also consider to no longer fly to EU destinations. Low cost carriers such as Ryanair and Easy Jet provide flights at less expensive fares than BA in the UK and BA EU destinations.

[@ryansofly]

I did not mention this in my video. But the IFE is streamed via WiFi into our personal devices if we so choose. A substantial amount of BA passengers actually originated from the EU, flying to London then connecting to long haul flights.