Some links to products and partners on this website will earn an affiliate commission.
Many readers are undoubtedly looking forward to trying out British Airways’ new “Club Suite”. News of the new Club World cabin was released back in March. The new cabin will be available on the new Airbus A350 planes that will be coming into service shortly.
Long-haul service is due to begin in early October, with Toronto, Dubai, Bangalore and Tel Aviv the first destinations to receive the new aircraft. But before then, BA pilots and flight attendants will be giving the new airplanes a test run on flights between London and Madrid.
Although not officially confirmed, Flyertalk user BotB has posted a calendar of the expected flights to be operated by an A350 aircraft during August and September.
If random flight numbers don’t make much sense to you – here is the schedule for the aforementioned flights:
BA456 London to Madrid departs 6:20AM arrives 9:40AM
BA457 Madrid to London departs 10:55AM arrives 12:15PM
BA464 London to Madrid departs 4:45PM arrives 8:05PM
BA465 Madrid to London departs 9:20PM arrives 10:25PM
It doesn’t look likely that you can get on the inaugural flight using Avios, but the return flight from Madrid to London on 6th August has lots of availability in Business Class. The availability of 7 Business Class seats certainly suggests a wide-body aircraft, even though the flight is still listed as being operated by a single-aisle A320.
15,000 Avios + £17.50 could get you on one of the first Airbus A350 flights to be operated by British Airways… I actually need to fly to London on the 6th – it’s very tempting to re-route via Madrid, despite the late arrival to London… Hmmmm….
Don’t always believe what you read on the BA website regarding flight availability. Go try and book and be ready to find out that whatever it was you wanted has been ‘apparently’ sold in the last few minutes. I questioned this anomaly recently and got poor responses from their customer services people, saying (basically) that you can’t be sure of getting it until you’ve got it. As an example, I tried three times to get a club class flight to Belfast from London at a BA web-advertised rate (saying there were 6 left at this price) and failed at the point of putting in my CVS. I attempted it the following day and got the same. Poor! Ended up having to book by phone. At least they waived the £10 phone booking fee, but I was very aggrieved. They would not refund me the £70 price difference.
Ah – the joys of BA customer service! That does sound like a particularly annoying example though.
Yup! It’s maddening. And all the more so because you know they mean well, but the cutting and pasting if pat responses just doesn’t cut it these days. Goes into the category of ‘must do better’.