British Airways

✅ Trip Verified | I booked for my wife and myself to fly to Grand Cayman with BA in November 2018. The schedule was Manchester to Heathrow then Heathrow to Grand Cayman and return flights 14 days later so 8 seats in total. At the time of booking I checked emergency exit seats were available on all flights and all seats at emergency exits were available. I am 6’2” and anyone 6’ or over will know the discomfort experienced in a normal pitch seat. BA had prices on all seats so you could reserve the seat you wanted, the seats at the emergency exits where you could see there was more space for your legs were 3 times the price of a normal seat. I paid additional fees for 8 seats at emergency exits. I receive emails from BA in July 2018 to say they had changed my seating allocation but I presumed they had just moved us to another exit seat on a like for like basis. If not I was expecting a refund, the refund never came, so I remained confident we were still seated in a like for like basis. Out of 8 emergency exits seats I paid for, we were only seated in 3. Upon my return I requested a refund from BA for 5 seats I’d paid for at a premium rate, below is their response. Thanks for getting in touch with us about your flight from Manchester on 22 November. You’re clearly disappointed with your seat because it didn’t have as much leg room as you’d expected. I completely understand why you’re feeling let down. I realise you feel you didn't get the seats you'd paid for. The maps you can see on ba.com are representative of the seats on board our flights. We can’t guarantee your seat will be exactly as shown on our website, as the configuration can vary depending on the aircraft you’re travelling on. I’m afraid we can’t promise you’ll be able to sit in a particular seat on our aircraft and we do advise this in our General Conditions of Carriage, which you accept when you make your booking. This means I’m unable to offer you a refund on this occasion. I know this isn’t the answer you were hoping for and I’m sorry. I can see why you’re frustrated we didn’t meet your expectations and we’re grateful you've taken the time to let us know how you’re feeling. Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to respond to your concerns. We appreciate your support as a Blue member of our Executive Club. I hope we can welcome you on board again soon. Please feel free to contact me directly using the blue link below if I can help you with anything else. I emailed them back stating I’d paid a premium for extra leg room seats by emergency exits and I expected a refund and this was their reply. I'd like to inform you that we do inform passengers that the seat map is for guidance only and not true to scale. Extra space between rows does not indicate extra legroom. However, any exit row seat may have extra leg room, but we don't sell these seats as extra leg room seats on ba.com. The leg room may vary as per the aircraft seating configuration. I do appreciate your reasons for asking, I'm afraid we cannot refund you the prepaid seating charge. So basically, BA believe if they do not sell seats as extra legroom seats, they can charge you a premium for them, then move you to a seat you’d pay less for and not refund you the difference. The scale argument does not stand up to scrutiny as the seat pitch at emergency exits are more than standard pitch.

✅ Trip Verified | This is my first time flying with BA to Kuala Lumpur on the Boeing 787. Was very excited for this trip as BA has made a come back to fly to Malaysia after stopping the service for many years. I paid to seat at the first row to have a longer leg room. I regretted and disappointed for the choice. I made a complain to the crew that my seat (30B) has sunk and I felt uncomfortable to be sitting on this seat. Crew offered me an extra pillow to seat on it, which didn't help either. The tv screen on 30B was also not working. I would recommend to totally avoid sitting on all row 30 as the seats are so close to the lavatories that you can hear toilets at all time. Crews were friendly and helpful. No fault with that.

✅ Trip Verified | I am a frequent flier. I have been Gold with British Airways for years. The seats on the new planes on European flights are the smallest and most uncomfortable I have ever travelled on. I heard they were going to add more rows but as I sat I couldn't believe how little leg rooms the rows have been reduced to. I could barely sit and fit. The worst thing is that this plane only has 1 exit row with extra leg room for a total of 6 seats for the whole plane. in Europe.

Not Verified | I'd read up on BA premium economy on the BA website and it seemed rather good, sadly this is where things started to go wrong. Flying on a clearly aging 747 from Heathrow to Miami didn't start things off too well, the seat was very narrow for premium economy, noticeably narrower than Virgin, legroom was fine though. We were greeted with a glass of champagne which was a nice touch, oddly on the return Orlando to Gatwick run we had a choice of orange juice or water, disappointing to say the least. As far as perks go that was it. Food ran out so we ended up with economy food, nice but not fantastic. The back seat TV was old fashioned, small in size compared to other airlines and had a very limited choice, all in all both flights were very disappointing. One other thing we found odd was no toilet in the premium economy area of the 777 from Orlando to Gatwick, we had to use economy class toilets some twenty rows behind us. For the money we paid we expected a lot better.

✅ Trip Verified | I travelled from Houston to London Heathrow in premium economy. The seat itself was quite comfortable, with a good seat pitch and a decent recline (we were in the back row so didn't need to worry about ruining someone else's journey by reclining into their faces). The seats had seen better days, and the whole cabin looked quite old and tatty. The screens on the back of the seats in front were tiny and quite difficult to see. In my case it was not functioning correctly anyway, but I'd brought my own entertainment so not really a problem. There was the - now usual - problem of people bringing up to five bags onboard, some of which were large suitcases, so very little room in the overhead lockers for those who'd only brought on one bag. Since our bags fitted under the seat in front this was not an issue. The biggest problem was the meal service. There were theoretically two meal options but since we were at the back of the cabin we were left with the option nobody else wanted: they called it "spinach and ricotta ravioli", but it was an inedible slab of dried up pasta and dried up tomato ketchup. On the plus side for us, the first choice, "Fillet of beef with broccolini", was also barely edible. In my experience economy gets much better meals than premium economy on most airlines. If travelling premium economy on British Airways, where one of the options is inedible slops, those at the back of the cabin will effectively get no meal because the travellers at the front get first choice. If you're travelling from London you can choose your meal beforehand, which is useful. If you're travelling to London at the back of the cabin bring your own meal with you or you may end up going hungry.

Not Verified | I flew on British Airways from Gatwick to Barbados return last week. There was two different seats I flew on (Old and new) I didn't really like the old one but loved the new one. On the old seat, the screens were only the size of my hand and there was no power outlets - On the new seat, the screens were nice sized, there was plenty of power outlets and just a clean seat. I would recommend this airline to families - It is the perfect seat for kids as it has nice space with large blankets and big headphones.

✅ Trip Verified | We flew from London to Prague on this aircraft after flying from Washington on a Boeing 787. Oddly enough, the A320 seemed to have better legroom than the 787. The A320 may have the newer "slimline" seats - I don't know how to tell exactly, but the looked thinner. I do know that they were extremely uncomfortable. The two hour flight was about all I could handle.

✅ Trip Verified | The seats were not terribly uncomfortable for economy, but while BA claims 31" of legroom it seemed like less than that. I am 5'6" and my wife is 5' 2" and we were very close to the seats in front of us. The gentleman next to my wife was not more than average height and his knees were pressed up against the seat in front of him. The seats were also very narrow. I honestly didn't even attempt to doze there was no point.

✅ Trip Verified | Very old cabin and seat. Seat recline was very limited and foot rest was very flimsy. The control for the in flight entertainment is in the side of the seat so you regularly brush it just sitting in the seat which can turn the entertainment off or pause the video. The screen for the entertainment was amongst the smallest i have seen and much smaller than economy class on other aircraft types. The entertainment kept skipping and had to be reset just after take off which meant no entertainment access for 30 mins. The leg room pitch was pretty good. A lot of the blinds were broken in some way so a lot of light poured into the cabin and as this was an overnight 10 hr flight that was not idea. They need to refurbish these old 747s desperately. The seat power point in word traveller plus is the old empower connection. No one uses this connection type anymore. it needs to be changed. It's like having a car with a CD player. Would have been state of the art, 20 years ago. Will not be flying this aircraft type with BA again.

✅ Trip Verified | My wife and I flew economy on British Airways long-haul, Heathrow to Miami return. We will never use BA for long-haul economy flights again or recommend others to do so. Although cabin staff were excellent, seat space (pitch and width) were awful, so much so that we dreaded the return flight (outbound, Airbus 380, February 18; inbound Boeing 747, March 18). Each of us is below average UK height so we hesitate to think about the likely discomfort for other passengers. When the seat in front was reclined, getting access to the aisle from a non-aisle seat (e.g. to use a toilet) needed contortions worthy of a circus performer on each flight.The seat reclining mechanism on my return flight was broken and added to my own already-cramped discomfort. Experience not to be repeated. Flights did depart and arrive on schedule