thecartoonman - 19/02/2012 21:32 GMT
We were travelling as a family party of 4 adults from Tokyo Narita to London Heathrow and opted to pay the £149 per person to upgrade from WT to WT+ which as we had purchased the original tickets in a BA sale back in August 2011 made for a reasonable fare, particularly as WT+ gave an additional baggage allowance of 1 bag per person which was needed.
BA's check in at Tokyo Narita was well organised and as we had already chosen our seats it was a case of simply dropping off our bags and collecting our boarding cards.
BA uses it's new 777-300 ER on this route and the aircraft felt new. We were sitting in seats 26 D,E,F,G which was the last row of 4 in a WT+ cabin that was totally full, this was nice since you knew you could put the seat right back without a problem.
The seat was comfortable with a reasonable recline, a good 38" pitch and the latest BA AVOD system which kept us all occupied throughout the flight, with a good size screen that was also touch sensitive and makes you realise just how much in flight entertainment has progressed in the last few years, and how the older systems found on other BA aircraft are just not up to scratch.
The food and beverage service started soon after take off and with a full WT+ cabin the menu choice of chicken or fish soon came down to just fish, though the cabin crew did manage to find me a chicken and it was surprisingly tasty. Funnily, I had metal cutlery whilst my wife had plastic and it would have been nice to have been given a 500ml bottle of water (as in CW) rather than the cuplets and perhaps a choice of water, or juice on boarding and a hot towel, it's these little differences that could really make the WT+ product stand out.
Mid way through the flight the cabin crew served another light snack and then 2 hours out of London another light meal that was a choice between Japanese prawns and a Vegetable Lasagne both of which were good and most welcome after almost 10 hours in the air.
The WT+ cabin on the 777-300ER is quite small (40+ pax) and with a curtain separating you from WT and CW, it does have a pleasant feel to it, and with the toilets being behind WT+, or just the other side of the CW curtain you don't get any WT passengers passing through the cabin which added to the ambience. I was not sure whether we could use the CW toilets but other passengers from WT+ did seemingly without a problem.
A walk back through WT only demonstrated how much more space you do have in WT+ and for a flight of over 12 hours it does make a considerable difference particularly the taller you are and although not perfect for sleeping, you can almost stretch out at an angle of 45 degrees which is much better than WT.
WT+ is a good step up from WT and sits nicely between that and CW which for many travellers is just not financially viable, but it is not business class and passengers used to travelling in CW will obviously be disappointed to be sitting in WT+, whilst for passengers moving from WT to WT+ it's a very pleasant upgrade.
One point, the BA crew on this flight were a surly lot and barely smiled all flight, many looking as if the 2 days in Narita were not enough to ward off jet lag, but they are the face of the airline and on this flight they came up well short, the exception being the Japanese crew members who were polite and smiled for 12 hours - how much we Europeans still have to learn about consistent customer service!
