Review of British Airways flight from Madrid to London in Business

introduction

Over the last decade, I've flown more miles on British Airways than any other airline and have seen them at their best, as well as at their worst. The vast majority of flights are quite pleasant and uneventful—and BA cabin crew are consistently lovely. However, one area where BA have always struggled, in my humble opinion, is with irregular operations–or IRROPS, as they are called in industry lingo. Whether it be weather delays in London or all-too-frequent technology outages—British Airways seem to always have a difficult time recovering from unforeseen events that negatively impact the network. Having the majority of their eggs in the overcrowded Heathrow basket, certainly doesn't help with system recovery, and I understand that there are many more such factors that do not work in BA's favour whenever things go wrong, but it is imperative that they learn from lessons past and improve their operational recovery going forward. Fixing their notoriously terrible and unreliable IT would be a start, as it would certainly help speed up recovery. Too often have they made international headlines while facing chaos over multiple days, and even weeks, following IRROPS.

On August 28, 2023, a computer issue within NATS, the UK Air Traffic Control agency, caused an outage that took several hours to resolve. Being that the UK has some of the world's busiest airspace, those few hours of down time began a domino effect of operational turmoil for airlines flying in and out of the UK. 

With the NATS incident on the 28th, I wasn't terribly worried about there being any impact on my next BA flights, which were to be on the 31st of August, a full 3 days later. Well…I was wrong. BA's notoriously slow and chaotic post-IRROPS system recovery would ensure that my flight on the 31st would not be entirely unaffected by the NATS outage domino effect. 

About 4 hours before our flight was scheduled to depart, it was showing on time, but I received this e-mail message from British Airways:

Yes, that's right, BA were taking away basically the only thing that differentiates the Club Europe Business class hard product from Economy: the empty middle seat.

I fully understand the good intentions here–they were going to fill up the cabin to get as many people on their way as possible–and I don't disagree with the decision itself. What does bother me is the chaotic manner in which it was executed, without warning, just a few hours before our flight was due to depart. I'd already checked in on the BA app the previous day and everything appeared normal, with our original seat assignments.

The below shows our seat assignment at time of booking–at OLCI the cabin was much more full. 

After receiving the e-mail from BA, I immediately went to the BA app to check on seat assignments, and they were still showing unchanged. Knowing BA's terrible IT, I didn't trust it, especially since the option to check the actual seat map was no longer available at that point. 

So I checked the seat map on the ever-so-trusty ExpertFlyer.com, and my instincts were right on–there's absolutely no way we still had our same seat assignments as our row, and the row ahead of it, were no longer in Club Europe. The curtain had been moved up by 2 rows and, as expected, middle seats were filled. 

I hated not knowing where my seat assignments were, considering we were travelling with our 4-year-old child. From experience with similar situations in the past, I assumed they'd re-seated us separately throughout the cabin…

routing

Flights in this series of reviews:

check-in & lounge

Considering the situation, I wanted to make sure we arrived to the airport early to try to figure out the seat situation. 

Right about 3 hours before departure, the British Airways ticket counters weren't too busy yet. 

There was no wait to check in through the Club Europe queue. The Iberia agent working the BA counter checked our seat assignments immediately and was very apologetic in confirming that we had been given new seat assignments appart. Once again, I'd guessed correctly. Ugh…I hate when I'm right, but BA are so predictably bad with these situations that's it's not difficult, sadly.  

Of course, by this point, the Business cabin was completely full and there was no room to play around with seat changes to try to get us together. I was very displeased about this situation, especially considering that BA weren't following their own policy of seating small children with at least one parent.

I'm never one to expect special treatment because of my oneworld status, but I just find it insane that BA would separate a family of 3 without regard to age and/or frequent flyer status–with two top-tier Emeralds, and a child with Sapphire status flying in paid Business class on the same reservation. We'd already had the same issue on the inbound flight and it just keeps happening! I'm 99% sure this issue is due to BA's awful IT—status and or age must not be included in the algorithm that moves seat assignments.  

At this point there was nothing we could do, but hope to be able to switch seats on board or ask cabin crew for assistance. So we headed through Fast Track security, which is always quick and pleasant at MAD T4. 

Then made our way down to the train that would take us to Terminal 4S, as all non-Schengen flights depart from the T4S satellite terminal. 

It's a long way down several levels of escalators to get to the train. 

T4S is quite a distance from the main T4 building, taking the underground train about 3-4 minutes to reach. 

The Satellite terminal has the same beautiful lofty architecture as the main Terminal 4 building. 

Like the main Terminal, there are also several playgrounds throughout the concourse, which is fantastic when travelling with kids. It's perfect to get some extra energy out before a long day of flying. 

As we still had plenty of time before boarding, we headed to the Iberia Velazquez lounge. The lounge is located in the middle of the duty free zone, so can be easily missed if you're not familiar with this terminal. 

The space is huge and has two mostly identical wings on either side of the central entrance. It was relatively quiet at this hour of the morning as there aren't many non-Schengen flights at this time. It gets much more busy in the late morning and early afternoon with the big banks of transatlantic departures. 

There are very nice views of the tarmac from the lounge.

Every once in a while you can spot something a bit more exotic like this Spanish charter carrier, Plus Ultra, but mostly it's a lot of Iberia. 

The buffet is decent, with a good variety of hot and cold options, though there are less hot items at breakfast. 

boarding

Our aircraft was parked at the gate closest to the lounge so it was a short walk. The last few times we'd taken BA from MAD, it was this same gate. 

Boarding has just begun as we arrived and we were able to queue up and get on board with Group 1. 

There were a lot of people in Group 1 apparently (Group 1 consists of Business class as well as oneworld Emeralds. 

Always nice views from glass jet bridges–I wish we had these in the US. 

At the door we were greeted by a very cheerful cabin crew. We explained the situation with the seating as we going past (slowly due to the long queue). The purser apologised and acknowledged it had been chaotic the last few days with changing seat assignments. She told us she'd be back in a few to try to help us get at least 2 seats together for one adult and the child. I was appreciative for that positive attitude!

It turned out there were several other families with children in the Club Europe cabin who has been seated appart so we were able to work out musical chairs amongst multiple parties and all get seats together. By the time the purser came back a few minutes later, all had been worked out. 

It was kind of shocking seeing suck a fully packed "Business" cabin–it just didn't been premium at all. 

At a 30-31" seat pitch, legroom is already a bit tight, but it feels especially tight with the blocked middle seats gone. It was weird being in a middle seat in Club Europe, but by AvGeek side can at least appreciate the uniqueness of it all. 

There are 2 combo USB/AC power units for every 3 seats, which normally means that each passenger in Club has their own outlet when middle seats are blocked. 

I checked ExpertFlyer again while onboard, and the Club cabin ended up completely full. 

Despite a somewhat chaotic boarding, everyone was in their seats quickly and we left the gate right on time. 

It's always a short taxi to the runway from Terminal 4. 

And we were off. 

the flight

This A320 was equipped with Wi-Fi, as are most aircraft in the BA fleet. 

While there is no streaming entertainment, one can find the High Life in-flight magazine in the Wi-Fi portal. 

Wi-Fi packages start at 2.99 GBP for Messaging, and 4.99 for 1h of full internet access.

Despite a jam-packed Club cabin, cabin crew offered very attentive service to all passengers. They came quickly with drink orders and soon followed with meals. 

My son's child meal was delivered first. A standard pasta dish–nothing exciting but perfect for kids. 

I had a chicken dish, which was actually quite tasty and juicy. It's hit or miss whether there are printed menus in Club Europe–this time there were none, so I'm not exactly sure about the description of the dish, but it was good. 

There was also a beef carpaccio option. 

One nice thing about the BA Wi-Fi portal is you can check the progress of the flight as well as the weather at destination. 

As mentioned earlier, cabin crew were very attentive and proactive and did several rounds of drink refills in the cabin. 

Before we knew it we were making out descent. 

Most of the time, aircraft land into Heathrow from the east, descending over London, but we approached from the west over the countryside. 

Some nice views of the action on the runways as we taxied to Terminal 5. 

We arrived into Terminal 5A–the main T5 building. 

We immediately headed to the Transit Security to get to the lounge. 

Yes, I survived sitting in a middle seat in Club Europe, haha. 

Thanks to a lovely cabin crew, a chaotic situation was turned around and it became a generally positive experience in the end.