Big fan of BA. Pretty decent luggage allowances, food is un-Britishly good, and cabin crew is always genuinely friendly and helpful, not the fake AA-friendly.
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TC, have you had bad BA experiences or is this more a thing about One World and it being American’s partner? BA was bad in 2022 with a lot labour issues but was also impacted by labour issues at Heathrow and across Europe. They are investing a lot in the business class experience and are updating most of the fleet. Flew them to Toronto for Christmas from T5 and it was very nice.
You mentioned Finnair in the chat with Soly about One World. I flew them a few times last year out of Heathrow T3 to Helsinki. Nice on board experience in economy even, had access to the Cathay Pacific Lounge in T3 which was great and Helsinki airport is really good with a great Finnair lounge.
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BA food has definitely been upgraded in the past few years. Although on the European routes from Heathrow you only get food in business class.
I’m curious what the grounds are for SeaTac being terrible, I moved here last summer for work and have to travel every week and I think it’s totally fine. I get hyperbole sells but now I’m territorial about SeaTac and have to go to bat for it. I’m a delta guy so the lounge is never full, there are good food options outside of that and the transportation gets you around pretty reliably. The furthest gates have a train and walkways, the rental car center isn’t the closest but it’s better than the San Diego situation in my book (although that bar is through the floor).
I never thought I’d be a guy with opinions on this stuff but a year of seeing the country and Canada via airplane hasn’t given me much of a choice
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just because some folks have an opinion on a podcast doesn’t mean you have to believe it 
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As distinguished members of the Honorable Society of Very Frequent Flyers, what are your views on us Plebeians skiplagging? Scummy or perfectly justifiable?
We flew BA this summer from YVR to get to Rome through Heathrow this summer. Not my choice but FIL has permanent gold membership. Got upgraded to business which was nice but then…
- Flight was delayed 3 hours
- Sat on the tarmac at Heathrow for an hour because they didn’t have staff to unload the bags
- Due to that Missed the rebooked flight to Rome by 20 minutes
- BA said they were all out of hotel rooms because they’d fucked so many flights so tough shit we would have to book our own
- After 2 hours they finally got us onto 2 flights the next morning (there were 6 of us)
- Turns out those flights didn’t actually exist and then BA told us the earliest they could get us to Rome was in a week.
- We booked our own flights and got to Rome that night.
Just an utter disgrace.
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For airports 4.0, I think getting deeper into travel tips or lessons learned would be interesting.
Like being a west coat traveler, I fly directly from PDX to Heathrow or Schipol. My first move before my connecting flight is to leverage either the lounge in Heathrow or the microtel in Schipol to get a shower in and feel like a normal human being before hopping onto my next flight.
Also, absolutely no Alaska Airlines love because of their connection to OneWorld when Alaska, in general, has probably been one of the better airlines to fly in the last five years. Kind of a disgrace.
Finally, TC defending Logan makes me question your travel bonafides. No matter how much they remodel that airport it is still a hellhole. The random breakoff gates that they have like in terminal B are inexcusable. Getting in and out of the airport by car is an absolute mess and the new rideshare app pickup areas are an inefficient mess. One of the worst major airports in the United States.
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When BA drops the ball, they drop it in the deepest part of the ocean and you’re on your own. When they don’t fumble, it’s a serviceable airline.
Back in 2014, I had spent 8 months living in Baku and was flying BA from there to Heathrow and then onwards to JFK trying to get home for Christmas, flying Dec 23-24. Got to Heathrow just fine. Overnight layover, then on an early departure on a 747 to NY the morning of Christmas Eve.
Get to the airport at 4am, find out the original equipment had an issue. The intended plane had a malfunction with the landing gear. Thankfully, this is Heathrow, and they have a spare 747 in the hangar. Gate agent announced about a 40 min delay and a not-too-inconvenient gate change, nbd.
About 2 hours later, boarded the replacement plane. I was a bit more than halfway back in cattle class, with a port side window seat. While the plane is still boarding, they spin up the engines, and one of them on my side starts smoking. People notice, crew notices, and then it’s a fireball. Full blown evacuation, “leave your shit and get back to the jet bridge” situation.
Thankfully fire dept showed up ASAP and got it under control before anything real bad happened, and everyone who had boarded got off the plane really quickly and efficiently. About a half hour later we were able to go back in and retrieve our carry-on bags.
Then the real fun began. It’s Christmas Eve, so of course staffing in the terminal is minimal. There are 2 agents working the customer service desk, and 500ish people are now frantic about not missing Christmas in New York. Of course they line people up by ticket class, so first class travelers get serviced first and snag any remaining seats on other flights that day. There’s not a lot available, it’s fucking holiday prime time. People are losing their shit in the terminal.
I had booked my ticket home through AmEx and called the Platinum number while standing in the back of the BA customer service line to nowhere. I got straight on with an Amex travel rep who quickly pulled up flights to NY. “There’s an American flight from the next terminal with one seat left, leaving in about an hour and ten minutes. That’s all I got for nonstops today. Can you sprint?” I told her to punch it and bolted. Found a cop (or, constable, I guess) and asked what the fastest way was to the AA gate, since I didn’t know my way around Heathrow. The officer was probably looking for an excuse to escape BA’s shitshow terminal, and offered to escort me. She swiped a badge onto the staff elevator, sent us to the staff corridor a few floors below, got me across the tarmac and up to the right terminal’s staff entrance. I made the AA gate with about 20 minutes to spare, and pulled up my email, where the Amex agent had delivered my boarding pass link. Checked in to the middle seat of the last row of the plane and could not have been more relieved.
BA delivered my baggage pretty efficiently and issued me a huge credit, which came in handy to visit Baku again the next year. At the time I was fairly new to the Amex game, and that experience cemented me as a cardholder for life (or at least as long as the customer experience remains great).
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Biggest takeaway: Baggage claim crowders are garbage people.
You don’t have to stand with your shins against the carousel. Back up and when you see your bag, step forward and claim it.
Uncivilized miscreants.
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a) decent public transit to/from the city if you want it (uber is nightmare any way you slice it with tunnel construction, shitty pickup/dropoff areas, etc.)
b) lobster roll and a sam seasonal from legal seafoods is always a delight
c) security is usually quick
d) I don’t ever connect there
e) usually have good luck with gates there, usually always delta or united out of there. Great sky club too.
And on your other points. Plenty of ways we can take this pod. I think travel tips and hacks is a good topic. I’ve never flown Alaska so can’t speak to it. They don’t fly into Jax and only recently started flying into Atlanta. Being in the Southeast there’s just not anywhere they go that I can’t fly Delta on. Just the reality for me. As I understand it they’re above average.
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Logan also needs a perpetual scarlet letter for having the 9/11 hijackers fly out of there.
But I concede the thought of having a sam summer and a lobster roll before hopping onto a flight is delightful.
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I agree with @ChickPhilA regarding EWR. I fly almost exclusively out of EWR because of where I live in NJ. Would take me an hour and a half to get to Philly (a bus stop of an airport and AA hub) and over an hour to get to JFK or LGA. With TSA pre-check, you are usually through security in 15min max. If you have clear that is under 5min. Terminal C out of EWR is easy to navigate. Good selection of restaurants and bars. The new United club is a massive upgrade. I also love the iPad ordering system. If I can interact with people less at the airport, I will.
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The only thing interesting about Logan was that you used to be able to pick up live lobsters before boarding your flight home.
Other than that, I’d rather drive to Manchester.
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MHT is my favorite little airport that could. No frills - can arrive 15 minutes before flight and have 7 minutes to spare. Parking cheap, rental cars a 7 iron away from baggage. Its 15 minutes from my house.
However - normally end up driving to logan for a direct flight as i had 2 separate connecting flight disasters (I’m looking at you O’Hare). PTSD from those will always have me fly direct if I can and very few direct options out of MHT.
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love being able to use miles with all those other airlines, awesome stuff!
love me some JAL, SIA, Iceland Air or Qatar Air
I used to fly Air Canada out of Logan a lot for work and I can only imagine that’s what being locked up in Guantanamo is like.
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Biggest thing going for BOS in my opinion is how close it is to the city: I can be there in 15 minutes almost any day of the week. It’s a little bit of a walk to the rideshare areas, but I never have an issue getting one and I feel like the signage is good enough directing you to where you should go. Security has never been an issue for me either. I wouldn’t want to connect through BOS, but it’s not a big airport for connections unless you’re going TATL.
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Had a fun Southwest experience a few weeks ago flying home from Denver. Had a cheap upgrade to business select and sat down in 1A. Plane fills, take off, drink service starts. Was late afternoon, a cocktail sounded nice. Mind you, I haven’t seen or spoken to the flight attendant at all up to this point.
I simply order a whiskey and soda without much fanfare but as clearly as possible given we’re in a plane, and the immediate response of “Well sir, we don’t carry that on this plane so you’re just going to have to find something else to drink.” was said in such a snarky and rude way that both of
my seatmates went wide eyed and stiff as a board with awkwardness until the initial encounter was over followed by a commiserating smile and WTF?!
Fast forward 10 minutes, same FA comes with my beverage and it’s filled literally to the brim to the point that the moment she reaches across to hand it to me the drink spills in my lap. I’m not saying she did that on purpose…but she definitely did that on purpose.
The most out of the blue lashing I’ve received in quite some time. Southwest did give me a $150 voucher, so alls well that ends well, but adding it to the list of reasons I won’t fly southwest unless it’s absolutely necessary.
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