For Spring Break, a friend and I decided it would be fun to do a mini-European tour and visit some of our friends who are studying abroad. Being budget conscious college students, we were ecstatic to find $326 airfare on a full service 4 star Skytrax rated airline like British Airways. And on an A380? Sold! I was super excited to try out the British Airways A380 as I’ve never flown on the airline or the aircraft type before.
Flight Details:
British Airways 268
Los Angeles (LAX) to London (LHR)
Aircraft: Airbus A380
Departure: 9:35 PM
Arrival: 4:05 PM (+1 day)
Duration: 10 hours 30 minutes
Status: On Time
Seat: 24A Window
Was it Basic Economy?
Yes…for $326 round trip, of course it was basic economy, is that even a question? This was my first trans-Atlantic Basic Economy experience. So no checked in luggage, but of course a free carry on which suited our needs. I mean basic economy for college kids “backpacking” across Europe is quite fitting, am I right? Out of all the legs on this trip, this was my favorite leg compared to the decent experience on American’s A330, and the poor experience on American’s A321.
The one major flaw would be that there was no free seat selection, so it was up to the computers to determine if we would sit together! On a normal economy fare, all passengers get to choose their seats for free 24 hours before departure on British Airways. Thankfully, this flight was on a large plane like the Airbus A380, so before check-in there were a lot of seats left. You could opt to purchase seat assignments with a Basic Economy fare, but the prices ranged from $52-$110 per seat. We decided to take our chances 🙂
24 hours before departure…
At 24 hours before departure I rushed to my computer to check us in and we received 24AB!
Yay we were together! Not too shabby, but a pair of seats on the 2-4-2 configured upper deck would’ve been ideal. 24AB is on the Main Deck where it’s a 3-4-3 configuration.
Our experience went from good to great when the boarding door closed, and no one was assigned to 24C–we got the row to ourselves!
The Cabin:
The first thing you notice are the high ceilings are on the A380. It feels really nice and airy. Boarding commenced quickly as there were 4 jetbridges boarding the plane.
Review of 24A:
There’s surprisingly a lot of room between the seat and the window, so shoulder room at this seat is not cramped at all, which is nice. A minor inconvenience would be the entertainment box located right under my seat, but since I had an empty middle seat next to me, I was able to stretch my legs into that footwell. Not sure how it would be if I had someone next to me. The box takes up about ½ of the under seat legroom. The windows are interesting as they have two layers so it’s a bit hard to see outside or get nice pictures.
The legroom was pretty decent, and my 6’3” friend in the aisle seat had no complaints. After boarding commenced, the captain announced a flight time of 9hr 35 minutes which helped make up for our short delay caused by late boarding. A cabin team of 22 would be serving us throughout the flight.
The A380 really is a work of art, it is such a quiet plane! Takeoff was super quiet, and I was able to catch some shut-eye.
After Takeoff:
We took off around 10:20pm, 45 minutes behind schedule. Beverage service shortly followed at 11:00pm and a dinner meal service commenced 30 minutes after. I already ate my dinner at the PF Chang’s at LAX using my Priority Pass membership, but I was still looking forward to this late night snack. The choices for dinner were between a chicken with mashed potatoes or a tomato pasta. I opted for the chicken, because mashed potatoes sounded amazing for a snack. Thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed by the mashed potatoes. They were pretty good, much better than I expected for an economy meal. The chicken was a bit dry however.
At around 12:15am they turned off the cabin lights, and I decided to get some sleep. There was a good amount of entertainment options on the seatback IFE, and WiFi was a very reasonable 15 GBP for the whole flight. USB charging was at every seat which was greatly appreciated.
Service was attentive–not overly welcoming, but sufficient.
I woke up to the breakfast service about 1.5 hours before landing and the choice was between an egg and bacon burrito or mushroom (vegetarian) burrito. I got the egg + bacon burrito and it was pretty decent.
The initial descent started 1 hour after breakfast, and we arrived at the gate at 4pm London time.
The Verdict:
Overall, I had a great experience in Economy (World Traveller) on the British Airways A380. I would definitely fly them again in the future for trips to Europe.
Happy Travels,
Ty
Have you flown on the British Airways A380? Comment your experience below! If you have any comments or questions feel free to email me at takeofftotravel@gmail.com. You can also view all my other posts here! Thanks for stopping by!
