Previous installments:

• British Airways First Class, Austin – London Heathrow
  
• British Airways Club Europe: London Heathrow – Paris Orly
  
• Park Hyatt Vendome

The new British Airways lounge at Paris Orly is a tremendous improvement over using the Iberia Salon VIP lounge pre-security and on the other side of the terminal.

BA’s lounge that opened last year services OpenSkies flights to the New York area as well as their flights to London, and naturally permits access to business class (BizBed and Club Europe) passengers as well as their own elites and oneworld mid-tier elites and higher. I would have had access as an American Executive Platinum (oneworld Emerald) if I wasn’t already flying Club Europe.

After checking in at the British Airways counter I went through an empty passport control and mostly-empty security queue. Then I went downstairs to the lounge.

On the right there are restrooms, and on the left the entrance to the lounge.

My departure for London was scheduled for 7:40am and I was actually at the airport quite early. It was about 6:25am and the lounge was not yet open — it doesn’t open until 6:30am — so I had to wait just a few minutes to enter.

Once inside I was pleasantly surprised. The tones were dark, but the lounge was large and furniture comfortable.

There were also plenty of breakfast items available. There were a variety of breads, corn flakes, and muesli. There was fruit, cheeses, and yogurt. And there was juice available as well.

The alcohol was out as well.

So a perfectly well-provisioned lounge, near the boarding gate. It’s downstairs so doesn’t afford great views, and while the desk is staffed there’s no service inside to speak of. Though BA had only a single flight at a time they didn’t announce boarding.

Nonetheless, there’s a flight monitor in the lounge and around scheduled boarding time I went back upstairs. British Airways had begun the boarding process when I arrived, and the airport wished me a fond farewell.

It was back onboard the narrowbody with less legroom in business class than legacy US airlines offer in economy.

It’s fine of course for such a short flight as Orly-Heathrow and if you do get the bulkhead you have plenty more room so I highly recommend that option.

Compared to this (and I’m just a tad under 5 foot 7):

The seats do have coat hooks, though!

And while I may complain about the legroom that constitutes intra-European business class, it was an absolutely lovely morning to be flying and there was no delay to speak of into Heathrow.

We were served a meal inflight, though I wasn’t hungry yet and took it just to see what it was.

Soon enough we had landed in London and I’d grab something to eat in the lounge before my business class flight home from London to Austin. That’s the flight I was most looking forward to, because it had been awhile since I’d flown British Airways business class and I wanted to see how it had held up.