Review of British Airways flight from London to Lyon in Economy

MY BRITISH AIRWAYS ANALYSIS THROUGHOUT 2012-2019

Hello Everyone and welcome to this flight between Lyon and London, a routine that was about 7 years long.

I usually left from Heathrow, I had to go to the funerals of someone close to me, so it was a last minute flight and I did enjoy the cheaper fares from gatwick (BA opens also a route to Lyon from Gatwick in the winter for the Ski season).

You may have noticed I lived for a good couple of years abroad.
I have kept some pictures, emails and documentation of the flights throughout the years, and I have been flying on the same route, at identical periods (Christmas, Summer holidays, Easter…).

I thought I could do something different, instead of posting FR sporadically I am suggesting to pick up one flight per year, so that we are able to compare and note the evolution of the product offered by BA.

My aim is here to analyse the evolution of service legacies have offered over the years. 

For the 2012 report it is HERE
For the 2013 report it is HERE
For the 2013 incident report it is HERE 
For the 2014 report it is HERE 
For the 2015 report it is HERE 
For the 2016 report it is HERE 
For the 2017 report it is HERE 
For the 2018 report it is HERE 
For the 2019 report it is HERE 

At the time, the fare included (for free):
A cabin luggage 
Complimentary meal and drinks (incl alcohol)

For the quality and level of service detailed above, the average price ticket I paid of a SINGLE flight on the LYS - LHR is:

£56 for 2012
£49,6 for 2013 (including a flight redeemed with Avios)
£57 for 2014 (including a flight redeemed with Avios)
£65 for 2015 (including a flight redeemed with Avios)
£50 for 2016 (including a flight redeemed with Avios)
£52 for 2017 (including a flight redeemed with Avios)
£17 for 2018 (including 3 flights redeemed with Avios) - hence the lower average ticket price
£94 for 2019 (including a flight redeemed with Avios)

terminal 1: the goodbye

I chose to share with you the last time I left from Heathrow Terminal 1.

Avios Miles earned with this flight: 250
Status earned: 5  

I - almost - always flew on the A320, BA very rarely operated any other A32X family members.

at london - heathrow airport

It is funny to write a flight report departing from a terminal that has always been there and is no more: the terminal 1. 

The terminal was opened by the Queen and was, at its inauguration in 1969, the largest terminal in Europe. 

I arrived at LHR by train - with the piccadilly tube. 

It is cheaper than the Heathrow Express and bout 20 min longer. 

Terminal 1 was by far the easiest to go to from the Tube station. Just a short walk away (nothing like this very long walk through long tunnels to reach terminal 3).
A quick trip in the elevator and you arrived at the checkin area, which was quite big for the few amount of flights - BA inherated from the BMI acquisition. 

On the left of this checkin corner was this sign… the end was near..

Security was at the very right of the BA checkin counters.
It was a very small room, clearly not designed for a vast amount of passengers.
Once this security passed, you arrived in the first food court. 

As you can see, all the shops were closed down ahead of T1 demolition. This was my last picture of the terminal… 

This is how it looked like a few months before this date.

My gate to Lyon was usually towards the building near to the lenghty tunnels (If you want to see them, here is my report from 2006) where El Al was usually operating from, as well as some BA flights. When I flew, everything was equally closed down but you can have an idea of how it looked like:

Again another picture from some other time where you can clearly see that Lyon was one of the ver very few destinations BA chose to operate from T1. Actuallym Lyon and Hannover were always the 2 flights operating at the same time. 
You can see between Rotterdam and Lyon, there was almost 3 hours without flights, and almost 1 flight per hour passed this point.. 

This gives you an idea that how ther Terminal 1 was as busy as a small regional airport; all the flights but from BA moved to either the T3, T4 or T5. 

The old T2 was already scraped down at this point, and the T1 was about to have the same fate so that the larger T2 Queen terminal is today.

The "tunnel" was the bit (not destroyed - still visible) were the gates 70 -90 are, the first food hall was between gates 2 and 17, the second food court on the building where the gates 7 and 2 is; and my flight was always leaving from gates 7, 5 or 8e-f.

The other building…

ONBOARD THE A320

Priorities were respected: Business class and Executive elite members.

Aircraft: Airbus A320-232
Registration: G-XXXX
Engines: 2x IAE V25200
Age: XX Years
Layout: Y180

Last view on the terminal… 

And I tried on the other side..

Before the curtains is set

The usual good old safety briefing! I heard it so often… Loved the music, it reminds me a lot of good memories.

And take off with this Fokker 70 now gone!

The view on the T4

The complimentary service as usual.
Very english of me this time! 

The magazine review. And let's start this time with the corporate pages, as it was showing maps where BA operates from, including the T1.

The vast network of BA.

Approaching Lyon, as we can see on the cabin screens.

and landing!

at lyon - saint exupery airport

We arrived at Terminal 1, the new terminal 1, that was about to called 1B, was still under construction.