BA OpenSkies » Biz Seat » User reviews

leebellion flew BA OpenSkies Biz Seat, on a B757 (21/02/2010 21:20)

MakingTravelEasier flew BA OpenSkies Biz Seat, on a B757 (03/07/2009 16:43)

I recently opted to try OpenSkies from AMS to JFK in February.

There was no online check-in, so, it was one of the desks at Schipol. When I got given my seat number, I thought, high number and queried this with the check in guy. He didn't seem to know why and when he didn't tell me about the lounge, I thought, I wonder what is happening.

When I said I had a confirmation saying "Business" and I thought there weren't that many rows on a 757 in business class, it turns out, that their view of business is actually, premium economy. So watch out when booking - personally I think that "Business" means "Business Class" and not "Premium Economy" or "Biz Seat" as OpenSkies have it.

As a BA Gold Card holder, I was able to use the lounge at AMS, which you can't if you are booked in "Business" which rather defeats the object of calling it business.

At the gate every passenger was grilled as if we were potential illegal immigrants/terrorists. I'm all for security, but this type of interrogation is the first time I have ever encountered anything like this. As I have a common surname, it was not a comfortable process as apparently I popped up on their watch list. Fortunately, there were so few people on the flight the line was not too big. I dread to think, even on this low density configuration what the queue would be like if it is was full.

The plane itself has four cabins - two lots of flat beds arranged like the classical BA Flat Bed and then two cabins with 5 rows of 4 seats (2-2). I was in the second cabin.

The seat is perfectly comfortable, and in many ways, is like the old BA cradle seat - although, probably a bit more like the seats on Delta which were like this one. For a day time flight is was excellent.

The IFE, was, however, a special unit that the crew delivered individually. It was a big MP3 type player with a selection of films/tv/audio on it. Maybe it was just my taste, but didn't think the selection was that good. Just as well as the battery only lasted about two hours. There were only a limited number of chargers to recharge the players for the whole flight. Now that might just have been this rotation, but, maybe not.

Food and drink were all ok. Although the flight was maybe a third full, the service was ok. Certainly not at good as the best BA flights I have been on, but better than the worse ones!

Return (night time) flight was in a similar seat in the back cabin. It managed to get a reasonable sleep - although the flat bed that I thought I had bought would have been even better.

Can't imagine this service lasting much longer if the load factors on both legs was anything to go by.

Oh.....and it took forever (two letters to BA) for my miles to turn up, despite my Exec Club number being in the booking.