What’s It Like Flying The Chilled Chicken Express?

When your flight features a salad as the main meal, the so called protein element is often a crowd pleasing chicken. Club Europe on British Airways likes to be crowd pleasing and the glorious chicken features quite often and presented in many ways.

Railroads often named their famous services with evocative names such as Argonaut, Land O’Corn, Comet, Kentucky Cardinal or the California Zephyr and it’s a shame airlines don’t do this. The dinner service between London Heathrow and Dublin is hereby dubbed the Chilled Chicken Express. You can thank me later, British Airways!

Lounging Around London Heathrow

Pre-flight I holed up in the British Airways Galleries First lounge. A range of self-service food is offered but I always make a point to try one of the table service options.

Once I flagged down one of the busy staff members I settled on the Chicken Mole and some ice cream. Self-service Champagne is on offer at the Champagne Bar so I washed it down with some fizz. Quite nice if a little on the bland side taste wise. Later I decided to nab a piece of red velvet cake purely for review purposes. No complaints but fun fact – did you know that it returns at the other end with the same colour? Is that blood? No, it’s red velvet cake remains coming to haunt your posterior!

Chilled Chicken Express

Eventually it was time to leave the busy lounge and head off to the gate. At the podium you hand over your boarding pass and Passport and you stand on the yellow feet on the ground as your picture is computer matched to make sure you are you. It takes seconds and then it’s off to the aircraft.

BA828 – London Heathrow to Dublin (LHR-DUB)
29 January 2017
Airbus A320-200 – G-EUYX
Seat: Club Europe 1A
Departure: 18:20 Arrival: 19:40

Boarding passes are not shown on entry to the aircraft and I was soon sitting in 1A with plenty of legroom waiting for boarding to complete. There is quite a difference between row 1 and the rest of the aircraft.

Hot towels are handed out to Club Europe passengers for refreshment before flight. I am now in the habit of giving the centre table between the seats a once over and rating how black I can make them. The table on this flight wasn’t too bad. After this, doors close and the safety demonstration plays on flip down screens. Once done it’s a taxi over to the active runway and off into the night we go!

Chicken O’Clock

Flight time between London and Dublin is generally 55 minutes and for such a short flight the meal service is quite good. Cabin crew are well versed in service on a short flight and swing into action as soon as they can.

You know, I like chicken. It’s inoffensive, easy to eat and generally goes with most things. Alas, airline meals are kept chilled to avoid the spectre of food poisoning. You might think, so? Why make this point?

Chilled chicken usually means dry chicken and dry chicken is not fun. The meal looked great but the protein element was a little difficult to work with in the mouth. Still, it is me and I was brought up to eat everything I am served and so I did.

To be fair the meal was very good and I was happy to have something different rather than the usual leaf fest. I do think fish might be a better option as smoked salmon is generally pretty nice on a flight.

Toilet Time

Champagne in the lounge and more on board meant waddling off to the forward loo for a tinkle. These feature some kind of art on British Airways and this aircraft had a print of a window overlooking the Palace of Westminster or, more commonly, Big Ben.

Nothing special about the forward loo however I like the more modern take on it that you find on other airlines nowadays. The white does wear badly.

Descending to Dublin

Those who are still in the middle of their drink are generally offered to decant their drink into a plastic tumbler to sip while landing. I quite like this as it means I can look at the view and still enjoy my drink.

Landing is always fun with all the sensations and noises of the aircraft being reconfigured and I always enjoy it. After that it’s the mental roulette wondering which gate we’ll end up on and boom! Flight is over and it’s time for the airport.

Overall Thoughts

I have reviewed British Airways Club Europe before and I certainly will again. Why? Each flight is different, the food is usually different and it’s what I choose to fly most of the time. I find nothing wrong with the product on short sectors though I am lucky in that I get the front row more often than not so it feels spacious. This is not the case in the other seats.

Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image via British Airways.