Flight Review: British Airways A320 Economy Class
Flight#: BA890
From: London Heathrow (LHR)
To: Sofia (SOF)
Flight time: 3h 30min
Aircraft: Airbus A320
It had been a while since last time I reviewed a British Airways flight (you can find this last flight review here) and, what’s more, since this was a relatively longish (for intra-European standards), it offered me a great chance to finally try out BA’s inflight meal options.
So, here are is my flight review of BA’s short haul economy class (btw, while most pics are from my LHR to Sofia flight, I have also used some from another BA A320ceo flight I took a couple of days earlier since the amenities and experience was rather identical).
Cabin and amenities
Let’s start by commenting on BA’s A320 cabin.
This was an 11-year old aircraft Airbus A320ceo aircraft. In 2024 BA introduced a new cabin product on its newer A320neos, but, this was still the legacy layout.
First, a quick glimpse at the business class cabin (left), which, honestly, looked rather unimpressive, particularly considering BA’s pricing for this product.
But, let’s move along to economy class.
Here below you can see how the seats looked like and also get an idea of the seat pitch, which at 29”, is nothing to write home about.
The seats themselves are fine. The leather upholstery gives it a bit of a premium feel. They have a small flexible pouch at the lower end and a hard literature pocket in the upper part (BA no longer distributes a paper inflight magazine, so you find the food and drink menu there, more of this soon). Seats are also equipped with in-seat USB ports.
BA’s narrow-body fleet is equipped with inflight internet connectivity. You can access some basic messaging functions if you are a member of BA’s Executive Club loyalty program. For everything else, you need to choose one of the data plans available.
Food and drink
If you fly BA on economy class the cookie and bootle of water depicted on the right is what you will get for free, everything else you can order from the inflight menu.
Now, when BA discontinued free inflight meals a few years ago it made a thing of offering relatively (for airline standards) good quality food through its “High Life Café”. Let’s see how this stands.
To be fair, pricing is not that bad (when compared, for example, to prices at London airports), particularly if you pick one of the “meal deals” (see below). You can also tell there is a very conscious efforts in making the food very presentable, with many items in the menu served in perfectly crafted packaging, highlighting in many cases the provenance of the produce.
My first intention was to try out one of the sandwiches, but…
I found particularly unsettling this almost interminable list of ingredients, including mayonnaise, which I really dislike. Why is it so difficult to find airline sandwiches with no mayonnaise or other pungent sauces? It is certainly not impossible if there’s the will and the good taste: both Turkish Airlines and Pegasus Airlines, for example, offer a rather nice and simple sandwich in their short haul flights.
A couple of examples of the marketing and “story telling” of BA’s inflight food suppliers, as expressed through their packaging. As someone that once upon a time worked in this field, I can only approve! Both the coffee and crisps were rather good too.
I finally opted for this vegetarian caponata rice bowl as a “main”, which, I think, turned out to be a really good choice. Quite tasty and substantious.
Also, a word about the service onboard, which, truth be said, was pretty good, with crew being quite patient as I browsed through all the dietary options and even took pictures of some of the meals they showed me. The captain offered also nice, timely information throughout the flight.
And this, below, is the A320 shortly after we had arrived to our gate at Sofia airport.
Our Take
I think, overall, it is a well-rounded economy class product, although not sure it justifies a high price differential vs. low cost carriers if flying point to point within Europe.