Flew with Malta recently with BA and the flight was with Avion Express. Like many I had read the horror stories, however it was by far the best flight I’ve had with ‘BA’ in Europe for a longtime. I could not fault the service, in fact I emailed BA after to suggest they could learn how to look after their passengers from this crew, but unlike Avion Express, BA don’t normally listen to their customers. The flight home was a BA crew who were more interested in feeding and watering themselves in the forward galley than looking after the passengers.
Thanks for sharing. There seems to be a real contrast of experiences. You and I set our expectations very low which might be why we thought the crew were good, although I have to say I couldn’t fault them either!
I haven't flown in Europe, so it came as a surprise to learn you had to wait until check-in to select your seat without cost. Food select in the lounge, and the meal on board both looked pleasing. Would love to be offered lamb onboard on time!
BA lets status holders select their seats for free I believe if gold, and silver nearer the time. As I have no status it's only free at check in which isn't great! On a recent flight back from Singapore economy seat selection came to £60 each!
I never knew about that shortcut to departures, so thanks for that! It's been years since I flew with Wizzair (back when their only UK routes were to a few Eastern European destinations from Luton), but from what I recall, that seat does look like "Wizzair purple". Maybe they are original seats? Nice report, Jamie. That lamb did look pretty good!
They certainly could be ex Wizz, seemed a bit too comfy to be though when I compared to my recent Wizz flight on one of their old seats! Glad you like the short cut, I wish I'd have found it earlier, could have saved me days!
Pleasantly surprised by your experience. A lot of the negatives you identified (queues at check-in and slow boarding) would be caused by British Airways and not Avion Express. The cabin looked ok and the onboard meal and service seemed excellent. All in all not too bad and a delay on an evening departure out of Gatwick seems to be the norm these days.
Yes certainly better than my expectations. The usual BA & Gatwick stuff aside, the crew of Avion Express actually performed well, and the seat was as good if not better than a usual BA A320
I flew back from Amsterdam to Gatwick this morning on Avion Express. I believe they are a Maltese Airline, although I may be wrong. The flight was ok and at least we departed Amsterdam on time, as it was busy this morning at Schipol and we were back in London in around 50 minutes.
I've heard mixed things so glad your flight was good. I think the aircraft are registered in Malta but from an AOC point of view they're Lithuanian. An on time flight at the moment is certainly a win! Thanks for watching :)
BA are using Avion during the busy summer months and they are also using Finnair on some of their routes out of LHR. A colleague flew with then to Prague.
Yeah cos when the LHR ceos was upgraded to 168 pinnacle. They included the removable table in Club Europe and then the Neo came there was no overhead TVs and no table in CE to reduce weight and also the SL recro seats from row 12. But the CEOs are pinnacle throughout but the overhead TVs were removed when it reconfigured to 180 seats to match with the NEO. Only applies to BA original fleet (G-EU**) not the second hand planes that usually operated from LGW
Thanks, pinnacle seat is much nicer. I always try and get the forward rows on the neo when I’m economy as they don’t always sell out of club so the better seats can be bagged
I had the misfortune to fly BA on an Avion Express plane to Marrakech last year in "Club Europe'. Slowest in flight service I've ever experienced and no leg room, I'm only 5'9" and couldn't fit my legs in. Very uncomfortable and the toilet at the front of the plane was out of order! Got compensation Avios from BA as it really wasn't a premium experience. It's fine when it's a Finnair plane, they are of similar spec to BA.
Agree yeah Finnair actually get it. I have to say my experience was good, not far off the usual but plenty of people found them awful. Just hoping this year they have enough aircraft and don’t have to bring them in again
That food looks far superior to anything BA serve. Did you also have to deal with BAs insecure, clockwork IT systems? As others habe said many of the pain points EG boarding are actually BA not Avion
@@JTsJourneys Not to mention the back office systems that regularly prevent flights. I think they're upto 7x IT breakdowns of various degrees of severity so fsr thia Calendar year. Thqt doesn't include the app... Still if you can get away with only paying out for about 40% of customers, it's OK.
Good report! It's a shame that BA can't offer their own aircraft on these services, however it does make for some interesting travel experiences! In July, BA changed one of my flights from LGW to a Titan Airways Airbus A321neo, which was a decent upgrade over the original A321 scheduled. Sadly, the Titan Airways offering typically flies for a day or two, then gets sent back to Titan. One question, were BA transparent about them changing your flight to Avion Express? Because in my experience, they were very happy to tell me my flight was to be operated by BA Euroflyer, but they didn't mention anything about Titan Airways until I made a 'fake' booking and found it out. :)
Thanks, must have been a nice treat to try Titan out, certainly an upgrade over BA metal but very hard to pin down. When we booked the flight was scheduled as BA but changed a month or 2 before via email informing us it was going to be Avion Express. No option to change the booking to a BA aircraft that I've seen others had.
Literally just flown Avion Express out and back to Ibiza for a 3 night break, 9H-MLV out and 9H-MLZ back both in euro traveller. Awful both ways. Dirty aircraft. Zero toilet roll or hand towel stocked both ways mid flight. Outbound they sold my pre ordered speedbird cafe stuff to other passengers, refused to even look for my duty free. Pretzels no water both ways and didn’t finish the service on either sector leaving back 7-10 rows without a drink. Surly crew. Awful.
Wow that’s a contrasting experience to what I had, but more aligned to what others have reported. Finishing the service seems like a basic issue that shouldn’t even happen, it’s a 2 hour flight so plenty of time. No excuses for selling your pre order, did you have any BA crew onboard ?
Flew with Malta recently with BA and the flight was with Avion Express. Like many I had read the horror stories, however it was by far the best flight I’ve had with ‘BA’ in Europe for a longtime. I could not fault the service, in fact I emailed BA after to suggest they could learn how to look after their passengers from this crew, but unlike Avion Express, BA don’t normally listen to their customers. The flight home was a BA crew who were more interested in feeding and watering themselves in the forward galley than looking after the passengers.
Thanks for sharing. There seems to be a real contrast of experiences. You and I set our expectations very low which might be why we thought the crew were good, although I have to say I couldn’t fault them either!
Good memories that’s the location of the old continental business first lounge I remember it well
Never visited the old continental lounge, good location though!
I haven't flown in Europe, so it came as a surprise to learn you had to wait until check-in to select your seat without cost. Food select in the lounge, and the meal on board both looked pleasing. Would love to be offered lamb onboard on time!
BA lets status holders select their seats for free I believe if gold, and silver nearer the time. As I have no status it's only free at check in which isn't great! On a recent flight back from Singapore economy seat selection came to £60 each!
@@JTsJourneys some European flights can be done 48 hours before departure. But if you got lowest price, you get allocated a seat
Great trip report
thank you!
I never knew about that shortcut to departures, so thanks for that!
It's been years since I flew with Wizzair (back when their only UK routes were to a few Eastern European destinations from Luton), but from what I recall, that seat does look like "Wizzair purple". Maybe they are original seats?
Nice report, Jamie. That lamb did look pretty good!
They certainly could be ex Wizz, seemed a bit too comfy to be though when I compared to my recent Wizz flight on one of their old seats! Glad you like the short cut, I wish I'd have found it earlier, could have saved me days!
Pleasantly surprised by your experience. A lot of the negatives you identified (queues at check-in and slow boarding) would be caused by British Airways and not Avion Express. The cabin looked ok and the onboard meal and service seemed excellent. All in all not too bad and a delay on an evening departure out of Gatwick seems to be the norm these days.
Yes certainly better than my expectations. The usual BA & Gatwick stuff aside, the crew of Avion Express actually performed well, and the seat was as good if not better than a usual BA A320
I flew back from Amsterdam to Gatwick this morning on Avion Express. I believe they are a Maltese Airline, although I may be wrong. The flight was ok and at least we departed Amsterdam on time, as it was busy this morning at Schipol and we were back in London in around 50 minutes.
I've heard mixed things so glad your flight was good. I think the aircraft are registered in Malta but from an AOC point of view they're Lithuanian. An on time flight at the moment is certainly a win! Thanks for watching :)
BA are using Avion during the busy summer months and they are also using Finnair on some of their routes out of LHR. A colleague flew with then to Prague.
Don't think the A320Neos have middle tables either in club europe
Interesting I wasn’t aware of that. The neos really are a downgrade inside vs the ceos
Yeah cos when the LHR ceos was upgraded to 168 pinnacle. They included the removable table in Club Europe and then the Neo came there was no overhead TVs and no table in CE to reduce weight and also the SL recro seats from row 12. But the CEOs are pinnacle throughout but the overhead TVs were removed when it reconfigured to 180 seats to match with the NEO.
Only applies to BA original fleet (G-EU**) not the second hand planes that usually operated from LGW
Thanks, pinnacle seat is much nicer. I always try and get the forward rows on the neo when I’m economy as they don’t always sell out of club so the better seats can be bagged
I had the misfortune to fly BA on an Avion Express plane to Marrakech last year in "Club Europe'. Slowest in flight service I've ever experienced and no leg room, I'm only 5'9" and couldn't fit my legs in. Very uncomfortable and the toilet at the front of the plane was out of order! Got compensation Avios from BA as it really wasn't a premium experience.
It's fine when it's a Finnair plane, they are of similar spec to BA.
Agree yeah Finnair actually get it. I have to say my experience was good, not far off the usual but plenty of people found them awful. Just hoping this year they have enough aircraft and don’t have to bring them in again
That food looks far superior to anything BA serve. Did you also have to deal with BAs insecure, clockwork IT systems?
As others habe said many of the pain points EG boarding are actually BA not Avion
The food was good, but I think that’s standard BA Club food rather than Avion catering. Ah yes classic BA IT issues on the travel app of the year
@@JTsJourneys Not to mention the back office systems that regularly prevent flights. I think they're upto 7x IT breakdowns of various degrees of severity so fsr thia Calendar year. Thqt doesn't include the app... Still if you can get away with only paying out for about 40% of customers, it's OK.
Good report! It's a shame that BA can't offer their own aircraft on these services, however it does make for some interesting travel experiences!
In July, BA changed one of my flights from LGW to a Titan Airways Airbus A321neo, which was a decent upgrade over the original A321 scheduled. Sadly, the Titan Airways offering typically flies for a day or two, then gets sent back to Titan.
One question, were BA transparent about them changing your flight to Avion Express? Because in my experience, they were very happy to tell me my flight was to be operated by BA Euroflyer, but they didn't mention anything about Titan Airways until I made a 'fake' booking and found it out. :)
Thanks, must have been a nice treat to try Titan out, certainly an upgrade over BA metal but very hard to pin down. When we booked the flight was scheduled as BA but changed a month or 2 before via email informing us it was going to be Avion Express. No option to change the booking to a BA aircraft that I've seen others had.
Literally just flown Avion Express out and back to Ibiza for a 3 night break, 9H-MLV out and 9H-MLZ back both in euro traveller.
Awful both ways. Dirty aircraft. Zero toilet roll or hand towel stocked both ways mid flight.
Outbound they sold my pre ordered speedbird cafe stuff to other passengers, refused to even look for my duty free. Pretzels no water both ways and didn’t finish the service on either sector leaving back 7-10 rows without a drink. Surly crew. Awful.
Wow that’s a contrasting experience to what I had, but more aligned to what others have reported. Finishing the service seems like a basic issue that shouldn’t even happen, it’s a 2 hour flight so plenty of time. No excuses for selling your pre order, did you have any BA crew onboard ?