British Airways business class from Austin to London Heathrow was the first flight on my trip to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and London, inspired by first class award space on Etihad’s Airbus A380 for my family.

I’ve taken this flight many times, either because BA was running a sale stackable with the AARP and Chase discounts (and upgraded to first class with Avios, back when they ran a Boeing 777 on the route) or because I’ve been willing to pay fuel surcharges for their new business class in order to fly non-stop with my young daughter.

BA operates its Airbus A350 on the Austin – London route, which guarantees their new business class. It’s a solid option, taking the off-the-shelf Super Diamond seat (which American Airlines uses) with some bespoke touches and adds doors. Food and service are always lackluster, and they’ve never once boarded the aircraft on time when I’ve been flying it, but they’ve also never been really late (other than delays circling Heathrow). It gets the job done.

We arrived at the airport almost two hours prior to departure. The airport was packed on this Sunday evening. Though a couple of folks were ahead of us in business class check-in, we were processed quickly and passed through PreCheck without a hitch. The line for CLEAR was too long and so we just skipped it.

Since it was cold and rainy, we skipped the Chase Sapphire Terrace which is down by gate 1 where the BA flight was departing from, and headed over the Admirals Club twenty gates away from it.

I love the staff at the Austin Admirals Club. However, I never see the folks who work the evening shift. That alone was worth dropping in for.

Fortunately, while the lounge gets busy before the BA flight, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it’s been at times. There’s nothing special about the lounge itself, and the new Austin lounge has been put off. Food is ‘improved’ but not really.

British Airways business class passengers used to have complimentary access to paid food and premium beverages, but that’s no longer the case either.

Staff give passengers a heads up about boarding for the BA flight in the lounge, since it’s a good ten minute walk. But they go off of whether the flight shows as on time, which this one did. We headed down to the gate for the start of boarding. When we got there we learned that the crew was late.

I never pressed for why the crew was delayed. Maybe their shuttle picked them up late. They had laid over in Austin – they weren’t coming in off of another delayed flight. But we had to wait for them to turn up before we could board the aircraft.

Once on board you’re confronted with the beautiful seat in a dense cabin configuration. There are 11 rows of business class (44 seats) in the forward cabin, and another 3 rows in a mini-cabin behind that. (There are also 56 premium economy seats and 219 economy.)

Normally I’d like the smaller mini-cabin, but it’s farther back in the aircraft. So my actual preference on the A350 is to sit at the very front of the cabin. That way I’m not looking at very many other passengers. My preferred row is 1, even though it means cabin traffic past me. First, because looking forward I don’t see the sea of people behind me. Second, because there’s more space at the bulkhead for placing items during the flight or when standing up.

On this flight we were in row 2, since there weren’t 3 seats available in row 1. On our return we’d be together in row 1.

Once you’re not looking at the dense cabin, and just looking at your own seat, I find BA’s new hard product to be excellent. It’s a good seat that I’ve always enjoyed from each airline that’s offered it, and that addition of doors as a sense of privacy (even if not actual privacy, they are not tall doors) where you won’t see people around you while in bed mode. And the aesthetics of the seat are very nice, as well.

You aren’t permitted to store your personal item or laptop bag at your feet in these suites, but there are several small areas of storage which is great. I just wish one was large enough for a laptop. Then I could get out everything I’d need for the flight at the outset, place my laptop bag in the overhead bin, and not need access to it again until preparing for landing at Heathrow.

Settling into my seat I moved bedding up into the overhead bin, and had a look at the amenity kit. BA actually does a nice job with its business class bedding and its amenity, both with a nice bag and with the contents.

Predeparture beverages were offered (I had water) and menus were distributed.

Only 3 bottles of champagne for predeparture service in a massive business cabin. They ran out, even rationing shot glasses’ worth of champagne for each passenger. And they had to tell customers who were asking for some that they weren’t permitted to open more bottles on the ground. Tthey would have to pay taxes on the bottles if they did.

I noted that the menu on this flight was quite similar to the menu on the BA Austin – London flight I’d taken six months earlier, and surprisingly similar to one from a year before that. Still, the food is fine and if there’s anything wrong it’s that service takes so long for an overnight flight.

Once in the air, packaged nuts were distributed along with a beverage of choice. I had another water. The nut mix just comes off as cheap when it’s served in a package, rather than warmed and in a ramekin. The nuts, while fine, aren’t nearly as good as what BA used to offer before the pandemic. Their candied cashews were amazing.

I paid GBP17.99 for full flight inflight wifi, but it was largely non-functional for most of the flight. Fortunately I didn’t need to get a lot done on this Sunday night overnight, since the connection would drop frequently, often lasting no more than 30 seconds at a time. On the return trip it worked near-flawlessly.

Dinner was actually pretty good. The salmon I ordered was overcooked but the sauce quite tasty. And the chocolate fondant dessert was fantastic. The pea soup was underseasoned and a disappointment, which was surprising since soups are one of the easiest things to get right on a plane.

It was 3 hours into the flight though before I was served dessert. I never got a drink refill or a change of drink for a later course, and never got a second piece of bread. Once the marathon meal service was over, lights in the cabin were turned off.

I had a quick visit to the ‘Club Kitchen’ where snacks were offered just to have a look at what was being provided (really just chips, nuts, and fruit).

The stop at Club Kitchen was on the way to the lavatory to change into a pair of American Airlines first class pajamas I’d brought with me. Then once back at my seat I made my bed.

I realize this is ‘just business class’ and ‘only’ a 9 hour flight but pajamas and turndown service would go a long way to making the experience feel special. With 56 business class passengers, turndown would be a heavy lift for the median BA crew, and pajamas would be an expense for an airline that is allergic to most expense.

I slept for around 2.5 hours and had about that long left in the flight when I got up. The meal service was too long for a good night’s rest, and it’s not because there are many courses. They just don’t have the galley setup to heat meals quickly enough, or the staffing to get them out quickly to the full cabin. I asked about another bottle of water but was told they’d run out.

A couple of hours out they began serving breakfast. The fruit wasn’t ripe. Much of it was hard. The croissant was stale and not warm. And the chorizo and egg sandwich lackluster. I know that most American and European airlines give short shrift to second service, and to breakfast in particular, but it was disappointing enough that I ate a couple of bites of fruit and one each of the croissant and egg sandwich and called it a meal.

While we made up quite a bit of time in the air on the way to London, and despite a short departure delay had actually been projected to land around 20 minutes early, we circled for awhile and wound up landing around 20 minutes late. That was no big deal, because I had a 3 hour 50 minute connection. Though most of that would be eaten up by the monstrosity of changing terminals at London Heathrow.

It started when we arrived at a hard stand (bus gate), so we deplaned down stairs and boarded a bus to terminal 5.

British Airways business class is very serviceable. The new seat (which won’t be completely installed in their fleet until 2026, despite already being four years into the roll-out) is quite good. The bedding and amenity kits are good. Their main meals are ok, snacks chintzy, and breakfast worth skipping.

Cabin crew are friendly enough, though a bit overwhelmed in the Airbus A350 in particular. I don’t really fault them for it. The dense cabin setup that British Airways adopted, to squeeze in more seats, takes space from the galley and doesn’t give much room to store food or for crew to work in.

They ask passengers not to use the forward lavatories during meal service but even still passengers have to walk through their work area to reach the bathroom, and to cross from one side of the aircraft aisle to the other. BA crews vary tremendously in their attitude and effort, but even the best crews are hobbled in their ability to excel providing service on this aircraft.

Still, I was perfectly happy with my British Airways business class hop across the Atlantic. And it positioned me in a single flight for what I was really excited about: my Etihad first class apartment trip from London to Abu Dhabi, coming up next.