Four destinations and counting…
Critics fanned the flames ahead of the the highly anticipated new Club World Suite unveiling, and whoops, they were wrong. Expecting an 8 abreast dorm room setup, British Airways instead unveiled a 1-2-1 seating setup with a privacy door, and gate to gate 4K entertainment, which can easily be considered a top 10 business class product.
While the critics are now silent, everyone else is chirping about when and where to actually fly the new “Club Suite”. British Airways “Club Suite” business class is rolling out to new routes quickly, so here’s where you can find it and when.
And by the way, New York starts Oct 9th…
Where To Find The British Airways A350 Club Suite
By now, you’re probably wondering where British Airways first Airbus A350’s will be flying. The answer: many places. The BA A350-1000 initially launched this summer between London and Madrid for crew training flights, which made for a fun short haul experience.
As far as scheduled long haul flights go, the British Airways A350-1000 with Club Suites will operate four routes in 2019 and the beginning of 2020, including…
- Dubai – flights 106 and 107 from September 2nd, 2019 outbound and 9th return..
- Bangalore – flights 118 and 119 from January 1st for outbound and 2nd for return.
- Toronto – flights 92 and 93 from October 1st, 2019 outbound and 2nd return.
- Tel Aviv – flights 162 and 163 from December 1st for outbound and 2nd for return.
- Tokyo – flights yet to be loaded into the system.
Where To Find The British Airways Boeing 777 Club Suite
British Airways is also retrofitting the Boeing 777-200 fleet with the new Club Suites, which will be found flying as early as October 2019.
- New York – select 777 flights from October 9th 2019.
- Seattle – select 777 flights from January 2nd 2020.
- Nairobi – select 777 flights from January 14th 2020.
- Chicago – select 777 flights from January 28th 2020.
- Abuja – select 777 flights from January 30th 2020.
- Kuwait – select 777 flights from February 1st 2020.
- Boston – select 777 flights from February 2nd 2020.
- Jeddah – select 777 flights from February 20th 2020.
- Philadelphia – select 777 flights from March 11th 2020.
The airline has now clarified that the Club Suite on the Boeing 777 will launch to New York on October 9th, weeks ahead of schedule, and will operates the following flights through the end of March, when more aircraft will be added…
British Airways New York 777 Club Suite Flights:
LHR-JFK: BA173 Dep 11:20 Arr 14:05, JFK-LHR: BA112 Dep 18:30 Arr 06:30.
Note: these appear to shift on certain Sundays, so be sure to check before booking.
Club World Suite
For starters, there’s a privacy door on each of the 56 Club World Suites, and direct aisle access to go along with it. That means when you pass out after a few glass of champagne or just a truly exhausting day, there’s no one to see you drooling, and if you need anything, the runway, or rather aisle is yours.
Here’s a first hand look at the new Club Suite from our tour of the A350-1000, including the best rows and seats in every cabin on the stunning new plane.
You will be enclosed in your own world with a large 18.5”state of the art high definition entertainment screen, and enough hiding spaces for the crown jewels. We mean actual jewels, of course.
Statistically speaking, the suite offers 40% more storage than the current Club World seat, with drawers capable of storing large electronics and whatever else you hauled on board, all at eye level, or nearby.
Electronics feature the obvious things you’d hope for, like a fast and responsive entertainment screen, USB ports and separate power ports, but more importantly, there’s a vanity mirror, just in case anyone suffers from mid air vanity issues. No judgement! Jokes aside, it’s a useful tool.
The bed features 79” of length and according to the airline, every effort has been made to maximise bed width for sleep comfort, in addition to soft fabrics to compliment the White Company bedding. In conversation with British Airways, it was apparent that the airline didn’t want that 79” figure to include unusable space, so when they say 79” it means actual space your body could occupy.
A plane is a place where amusing things are constantly overheard, and British Airways is tackling that dire issue with these new Club World suites, and not only via privacy doors. Special dark fabric walls have been designed in each suite to dampen sound and noise from outside. For light sleepers, this is huge and for those with juicy gossip or MI6 state secrets, it’s probably big too.
One last interesting tidbit: the suite is also the one and only customised Super Diamond seats to allow floor storage during taxi and take off. Basically, in other seats you’d need to put a purse, backpack or other item overhead during these stages of the journey, but in this suite, not so much. And with a fixed screen, you can watch your shows up until you hear the “ding” at the gate. It’s the little things, right?
The A350 Experience
Aside from a top tier business class “Club World” suite, the British Airways A350-1000 features 56 World Traveller Plus seats and 219 of the latest World traveller (economy), all with next generation in flight entertainment and wifi. Here’s a guide to the best seats in every cabin, with pictures.
Whatever cabin you’re in, and realistically, whichever airline you fly, there are a few features which make the A350 arguably best ride in the sky. That’s not just verbiage, it’s science.
The A350-1000 offers the most optimal air pressure for passengers, which feels more like life down on the ground than a pressurized tube in the sky. The plane also features advanced noise reduction measures and trippy mood lighting, which is actually designed to help ease jet lag. Here’s 10 things that actually make this aircraft really cool, even if you’re not really “into planes”. We know you secretly are…
Roll On The New BA A350 Club Suite
The world was hoping for an improved seat that meant people wouldn’t have to step over each other in business class, and instead, they got served one hot private suite with doors. Cold champagne is not sold separately. Here’s a full review.
This is the kind of move we were looking for from British Airways £6.5 billion investment plan, so roll on the A350’s! And just in case you want to use points to experience it, here’s 23 ways to earn Avios, and how to upgrade on BA easily…
A great step in the right direction for BA – best seat layout for Business Travellers too (can’t imagine anything worse than being stuck in a love-suite with a colleague).
Just a pity the roll-out will, most likely, be painfully slow.
I have to take a flight from Spain to London in September – should I book it now and hope I get this seat or will their be new itinerarys announced?
😆😆😆😆😆😆 Such a good move from BA, so happy. Assume it’s not possible to book the Madrid trial flights yet or Toronto?
Won’t know official date for Madrid, but Toronto is on sale, I believe flight 93.
hopefully they are able to retro fit planes quickly. with 3 seats a day being manufactured and cosidering other egs of KLM, AF and QR with regards to speed of retrofitting, I doubt we will see more than 10 to 15 planes by end of next year. Hopefully BA can accelerate this as the only thing it will create is frustration amongst all the pax missing out!
But yes, well done to BA. hopefully a turn in the right direction at 100 years. I was really expecting a JAL like space suite 2-3-2 (not oman air 2-2-2). That would have been perfectly acceptable given the miserable CW at present!
Shame that BA still has a ridiculous policy and charges Biz class and WT+ extra to choose seat 24 hrs more than 24 hours before departure.
Agreed @YoniPDX, I just booked business class from SFO to PAR in the fall and had to pay an additional $341 to reserve seats in Business Class. What on earth has come to pass now that Business Class doesn’t include seat selection at reservation? I can tell you it doesn’t entice me to book on British Airways again.
Hi Gib, surely BA Will now have to up their first class product as this new Club World suite looks as good or if not better than First and with a door!!
Cubicles in the sky…. Air Dilbert. Looks horrendously claustrophobic to me.
End of First class?
a GENUINE enhancement and surprisingly competitive hard product.
I’m going to reserve judgement until we know how fast it will be rolled out (See WTP+, a *decade* after launching their “new” (MkII) seat there is still a possibility of booking and paying for a hugely inferior product, now worn and dated on a significant minoriity of the fleet. Of course the marketing makes zero mention of this fact.
The vultures were circling and it looks like they only have the roll out timeframe to complain about now. How about they take all their planes out of service for a year? Credit where credit is due.
Typical. Better than before but not good enough. The doors are useless when the partitions are so low. Look at other airlines in Asia, BA is still nowhere near.
The Super Diamond seat is great because it has a lot of secure storage for a business-class seat but slapping a door on a standard Super Diamond seat and calling it a “suite” is…well, wrong. The door adds something to the seat but it does not create a suite in the literal definition of the word. A door serves primarily to increase weight and does little to increase privacy if the video screen has a camera staring at you 24/7.
seats look good but BA will have just few planes with suites..besides seats are not everything – service and food will be poor as usual
Looks like you got the New York date wrong – you meant 2019 and not 2020 right?
New York – select 777 flights from October 27th 2020.
I guess you meant 2019 not 2020
Wake me up please when this seat makes it onto the LAX-LHR route….
Will do 😎
BUT will BA start respecting their customers in policy terms AND will they…
Keep the cabins clean
Start loading enough catering /drinks so that customers get the service sold and air crew aren’t constantly apologising for having run out… I and business class passengers are landed hungry
Lovely overview of the new product. I too, wonder at the specific dates the planes will fly. For instance, I go to Kenya regularly and would love to spend a little less than first class tickets cost and take this new business class from Chicago to LHR and then to NBO and know that the 777 I am on will have this new seat. I feel like BA doesn’t let you see the seat map prior to booking or at least going fairly far into the booking process though. Is there anyway to know if I can book both of those legs in March 2020 and be assured (as much as one can with equipment changes) that I will have the new CW without having to ‘almost’ book several different options? Thank you!
what is the registration number for those B777 fitted with the new product? trying to get one of them. Is it G-RAES?
It seems that since the 27th Oct they switched back to B747 for that flight number. If that particular plane ‘G-RAES’ is the only B777 fitted with the new product, according to flightradar24, it is now flying on the BA177 (LHR-JFK) and BA174(JFK-LHR). Can you confirm the details with BA?
I don’t understand why this isn’t rolled out for Orlando. Perplexing but also I think it’s a bit of a liberty that they’re charging the same prices for the same seats (club world) but passengers are getting decidedly different experiences!
Sadly, “leisure” markets like Orlando, etc are the last to get the new cutting edge products, generally speaking. Airlines almost always prioritize their most lucrative paid business routes over others, so it may be quite a while on Orlando… Sorry!
Flights to Mauritius in Business Class are worn and tired. When are they going to retro fit on this 11 hour flight from Gatwick?
I just booked a return LHR TLV flight on BA163/BA162, yet now when looking at the seat map in the seat selection it’s still showing the old club world seats/configeration? The flight is November 2020, Is it December 2020 the TLV flight is getting the new suites?
They currently fly the 350 once daily and have since q4 2019.
Well from my booking it must not be the 162/163 flight… Bit disappointed as was looking forward to trying it out! Maybe they are switching it later in the year?
Will take a closer look!
Just booked flight 92 and 93 from London to Toronto in April 2020 and it’s not club suite. Changes from the end of March…
Will the new suites be rolled out on the Gatwick to Las Vegas flights before August 2020? Why can I reserve my reseats on Emirates and Virgin on booking but have to wait until 24 hours before the flight on BA even when booking Business Class. Not very good!
Doubtful, sadly. It’s puzzling!
Do you know if BA 65 to Nairobi has the new club suite? We are due to fly this December and have enough Avios for 2 tix in First with a companion voucher. Is the First product much better than Club on this rout or marginal?
Looks great – such a shame that it isn’t yet rolled out on the Heathrow-Shanghai 777 route; have a Business round-trip booked on it returning in November and this looks miles better than the current Club World, would have loved to try it
Booked into world traveler plus flight 281 on a BA 777 W using Alaska miles in June, 2022. In choosing seats, diagram shows rows 30-35 instead numbers in the 20s. Online assistance says they are WT+. Are they? Is there a diagram of entire plane anywhere?