Just arrived in Australia having flown with BA on BA9 from London Heathrow to Sydney via Bangkok. Not impressed with BA tho, unfortunately.

When we got to Manchester we discovered we couldnt have the seats we would like but for £179 each were offered an upgrade to World Traveller Plus which would give us the benefits of larger chairs, bit more space and two next to each other which would deal with our desire for a window and an aisle seat. It wasn’t the cheapest option in the world but this was a once in a lifetime trip for us so we thought “why not” so we paid up.

We got on the jumbo jet and were immediately struck by it’s age, somewhat reminiscent of an 80′s caravan but the staff were very pleasant and friendly so it wasnt the end of the world.

We got to our seats, they looked great, nice space, smaller overall cabin area and not too many other people about.

We got settled in and immediately discovered that one of the buttons to adjust the seat on 14B was pushed through and there was just a hole. It was only the adjustment for the lumbar so we thought it would be ok. Not what we expected on a BA plane mind.

You then start to notice other bits of trim coming loose and general bits of shabbiness in the cabin.

But no matter, we had our gin and tonics and little snacks and were excited about our trip to OZ, total travelling time of around 32 hours.

We thought we’d watch a film together, the choice wasn’t great (I’ve had better on Emirates) but settled on one, reclined our chairs and pressed play at the same on our individual screens. At this point we discovered that the headphone socket in seat 14B didn’t work so there was no way we could watch a film together.

Now we’re a bit pissed off with BA and it’s upgrade offer. How dare they offer this seat as an upgrade when they must have known that the seat was broken in more than one place. Surely we weren’t the first to bring this to the attention of the crew. The crew was polite about about it but basically shrugged when we explained our situation, our once in a lifetime trip to Oz and our paid upgrade. All he could offer us was a move of seats to a row of 4 in the middle, keeping an aisle but losing the window, and a comments card.

We moved, we had no choice, and watched a fairly dire film (Thor is pants don’t watch it) and later were brought a glass of champagne by the cabin crew by way of an apology.

We had to get off the plane at Bangkok whilst they restocked and refuelled it and when we got back on it was more full than before so no chance of a move this time so only one entertainment system between us for a flight over 9 hours and no chance of avoiding the screaming children with a bit of Adele. Tracy the cabin crew charged with looking after us was very nice but nothing she could do for us seat wise.

So all in all 24 hours on a knackered old jumbo jet, not a good start to our trip, BA should give us our money back.

Fortunately we aren’t flying BA back, it’s Qantas’ new A380 double decker all the way.