When I first heard there was a possibility of going to Sydney, I started digging around to find out what flights were available, and the likely prices. At that point, BA had an offer on for £448 return, unfortunately, I had to wait for permission from my line manager, and by the time this had been resolved, the offer had run out.
I took advice from anyone willing to offer it, look at masses of websites, airlines and agents including Expedia, Opodo, Cheapestflights, last minute,
Singapore airlines, Qantas, Virgin and BA to name a few. However, what immediately became clearer is that in the main, the prices were cheaper when booking directly through the airline's sites, irrespective of carrier.
After a lot of soul searching, I elected to fly with BA, who offer four flights daily to Sydney, 2 with themselves, and 2 with their codeshare partner, Qantas.
WHO ARE THEY?
The original British Airline, and the first full UK carrier, they fly to virtually every part of the world through their operations, which incorporate a range of franchises and membership of the "oneworld" alliance, which also includes American
Airlines, Aer Lingus, Cathay
Pacific, FinAir, Iberia, LanChile and Qantas.
From their website:
On their own they fly to 152 destinations in 72 countries, on the oneworld network, 565 destinations in 132 countries, and on their extended network 606 destinations in 141 countries, that is a lot of flights!
Needless to say, after 911, they hit some hard times, but in the last financial year reported a substantial operating profit, despite dropping the prices of many of their economy flights substantially, sometimes making them more competitive than their budget counterparts, the downside for me is that they do not fly from Wales.
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BOOKING
This can be done on line at www.britishairways.co.uk or through their
call centre on 0870 850 9 850 if phoning from the UK, although be aware, using the latter method will carry additional charges.
The BA website is a mine of useful travel information, and you can book not only flights there, but hotels, car hire and travel insurance. It is easy to navigate and you are also able to download a full BA timetable to run on your desktop.
I would however, heartily recommend becoming a member of their site, because for some reason completely unclear to me, their site is often unavailable to the general public, but becomes alive and kicking once logged in. As airlines go generally, it is possibly the most unreliable of all the airline websites I have ever used.
Once you have decided where you want to go, put in your required travel dates (up to a maximum of 350 days in advance) , select you class from economy, economy plus, business or first, and on pressing the search button, you will be presented with prices for 14 days either side of you required travel date in addition to your chosen dates. This can be quite useful if you can be flexible and are on a limited budget.
Once you have chosen your preferred dates, you will be presented with available flights and prices.
BA works on a colour coded basis for prices, yellow being the cheapest through to purple being the highest. You will also (subject to availability) sometimes be offered the opportunity to upgrade your flight to the next class either or both ways for an extra charge.
Once you have selected your travel dates etc, you will be required to enter your details as they appear on your passport, and then paying using their secured server, BA do not appear to impose a credit card charge on bookings.
The majority of tickets these days are
electronic, and therefore you will be presented with a reference number and e-mailed your travel details fairly quickly after making your booking.
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AT THE AIRPORT
If leaving from the UK, you will generally be able to check in on-line up to 24 hours in advance for Executive Club members, and 12 hours for members of their website. This service really is quite handy if you live a
fair distance from your departure
airport, and ensures you have a good chance of getting your required seat. I could not reserve a seat on the way back as I was flying with Qantas (BA omit to tell you this) and had to beg at the airport to ensure I had an aisle seat.
Unlike when I travelled to Lanzarote with GB Airways (operating as BA) when I could check in the night before if required, check-in is only permitted up to three hours before departure, and in the case of Sydney will be from Heathrow Terminal 4, which transpired to be amongst the most god forsaken, boring, small and uninteresting airport terminals I have had the misfortune to visit.
If you are departing for
Australia, you will need to obtain a Visa beforehand, this can be done on-line if you are staying less than 45 days on business or pleasure, you are in good
health and don't have a criminal record. The cost is a non-refundable AUD20 (c£8) and simply provides you with a reference number, the visa and shows up each time your passport is checked, it does not however, guarantee you passage off the plane once you get down under.
Baggage allowance in economy was 23 Kg, and technically you were allowed to take one piece of hand luggage on board, although I had my laptop with me, and no-one tried to stop me taking it with me, they would have done so at their peril. Passengers of higher classes get an additional luggage allowance for the hold, and can take an extra bag on board with them.
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ON BOARD
The plane for our journey was the Boeing 747-400, known in the industry as the 744. It is a two story affair and offers four categories of seating, First, Business, World Traveller Plus (WTP) and World Traveller (WT). As you can probably guess for the meagre price of £660 I was flying World traveller, the poor relations of the airline industry, we did try for an upgrade and I believe had the plane had not have been so busy, I would have got it, however, I think there was only one free seat on the plane, at least as far as Bangkok.
Seat pitch in WT is 31 inches, in WT Plus 38 inches.
In Business (World Club) you get 73 inches and in First 78 inches with fully flat beds. Seat widths start at 17.5 for us poor relations in WT up to 21 inches for First Class. In the higher categories you also have the facility to
plug in your laptop, and
phones in your arm rests. Interestingly in World Club, some of the seats are in the rear posiion, facing into the cabin.
Entertainment was 12 channels and a number of radio stations, operated through an area of the arm-rest which was a bit of a pain, because it was easy to knock the channels out. In fairness, there was a good selection of entertainment, including 6 current films including "Meet the Fockers", "Bridget Jones the Edge of Reason", and "National Treasure", plus various documentary programmes, news, comedies, cartoon network and a flight path monitor which showed route, location, times in departure and arrival destinations, speed and distance between the two. You were provided with headphones free of charge, and also a freshen up kit including toothbrush and toothpaste and an eye mask to help you rest.
There was also a credit card operated
telephone on board at the rear of the plane, running at a cost of $10 a minute or part thereof.
Refreshments to Bangkok consisted of a hot meal and breakfast and unlimited hot, cold and alcoholic drinks. The food was just about tolerable and pretty much inline with most other airline food, although travelling that sort of distance, if, like me, you are a fussy eater, I would recommend maybe taking something with you There were three toilets in economy and cups and tap areas for fresh water located at key points on the deck.
Reading lights are provided on the plane, although, unlike the return flight with Qantas, there is no individual air conditioning, and the temperature on the plane was unbearable, no wonder people get air rage. Staff were not particularly helpful, and although you were provided with advice and guidance to minimise the risk of DVT, you were actively encouraged to sleep and stay in your seat as much as possible. I was standing at the rear of the plane talking to a fellow traveller and was shouted at by the air hostess for disturbing people.
They do have Duty free for sale on the plane, although, at least in economy, it didn't generate much interest.
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STOP-OVER
On the way out, we stopped for refuelling in Bangkok and passengers were allowed to leave the plane and explore the airport. I can heartily recommend the massage and oxygen treatment at the airport for the meagre sum of £6 you can get pummelled to your hearts content by a petite Thai girl, it certainly helped make the second part of the total 19 hour journey more bearable.
Don't worry about taking local currency as
credit cards can be used, and there are also strategically placed currency booths at the entrance to the main concourse. Smokers may be interested to note that ciggies in Bangkok are ridiculously cheap; you can take 250 into Australia with you.
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BACK ON BOARD - THE SECOND LEG OF THE JOURNEY
In this instance we were on the same plane, although this may not always be the case, particularly if flying on a code-share. I had the same seat allocated for the second part, although again, this may not always be the case, as I found out on my return trip.
We were given a hot meal and more drinks from the bar more or less as soon as we got on board, and then breakfast about 2 hours before arrival in Sydney. Once again, we were issued with new headsets and freshen up kits, and passengers were encouraged to sleep. Interestingly, we encountered some major turbulence around Indonesia which heard crockery being thrown around the galley, and got us a warning from the pilot to remain in our seats, it was only after arrival that I discovered that there was some seismic activity going on underneath us, whether this impacted on the flight I do not know, but we didn't have anything like it coming back. Whoever told me you don't feel turbulence on a jumbo, lied.
We were also issued with immigration
cards to complete for our arrival in Sydney, for those passengers ending their journey there, and on these, you are expected to declare the purpose, duration and address of your visit, and things such as any medication you may be carrying, don't risk not doing this, or you could find yourself returning on the next flight back out of there.
The planes are also disinfected with a spray just before arrival, to ensure you don't walk anything dodgy into their country.
RELIABILITY
I hear lots of horror stories about BA, but on my travels they departed and arrived bang on schedule for both journeys, as did the Qantas flights on the homeward leg.
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MY VERDICT
This was my first
long haul flight, and for some of you out there, I may be teaching granny to 'suck eggs', but nevertheless, here are some of my thoughts on the long distance travel, and BA.
If you have a fear of flying, as I did, a long haul is a brilliant way of dealing with this fear
Leg room in BA economy is not the greatest, however, I coped when combined with a fair bit of walking around and drinking a lot of water, but if you over about 5' 6" and can afford World Traveller Plus, or at least get an extra leg room seat then do it. Having completed my return journey with Qantas, it was considerably more cramped despite offering the same seat pitch; I shall explain more in a separate op.
The BA cabin was unbearably hot, and would certainly make me think twice before using them for long haul economy again
I felt that the staff on both journeys were more interested in themselves than the comfort of the passengers
If you are a fussy eater, it may help to take something with you if you can
If you are travelling this sort of distance, make sure you get a reasonable stopover en-route, it may look appealing to get back as quickly as possible, but on the way back we had around 45 minutes off the plane and it made the whole thing unbearable.
Try to arrive in Australia in the evening rather than early in the morning, otherwise you will find your first day 'wasted' and it is also more difficult to adjust to the local time.
Stay as long as you realistically can, even if travelling for business purposes, a week is not long enough for your body to adjust, and you will pay when you get home.
Explore all the options, I avoided Singapore Airlines because of the food problem (my allergy with Asian food ingredients is a constant problem), however, they were actually cheaper than BA (by £2.50) and apparently leave no stone unturned in looking after their passengers; if Singapore airport is anything to go by, then they have definitely got to be worth a try
AND
Before you book, check out www.seatguru.com - it will tell you everything about every mainstream airline planes, including seat plans, and which seats to select / avoid.
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WOULD I USE THEM AGAIN?
For flights of up to 4 hours, no contest, they have some good prices and frequent departures, for longer journeys I would definitely check out the competition first, particularly as I missed out on about 10,000
BMI destination points with
BMI Diamond Club, and was ineligible for points with BA, because of the almost "bucket class" level of my non-refundable ticket. And for anyone who is interested, WTP would have cost around £1600, Business and First class were both over £3K. I did Sydney all inclusive for less than the price of a WTP return ticket and had a
5 starhotel for my troubles; I guess sometimes a little discomfort is worth it.
If your budget is tight, then I would recommend signing up to receive their special offers, as personally I feel less than £500 return to Australia is a very good deal.
RECOMMENDED WITH CAUTION
For more info visit: www.britishairways.co.uk
CHEAP, BUT NOT NECESSARILY CHEERFUL 
