BA business is not representative of a good business class though, they cram you 8 wide with their herringbone layout which is just insane for a "premium" product.

Yes, the chairs are relatively comfortable, and if you're just going to sleep it's OK (especially with the BA arrivals lounge at Heathrow meaning you don't need to wake up for breakfast on the flight) but after being the trailblazers with lie flat seats BA have really dropped the ball compared to their competitors.

Frightened flyers do not sleep on planes. Who is going to supervise the pilot, assess the nervousness of the crew, wonder what that bing-bong means, and listen for strange engine noises if we are asleep? We would have to tear our eyes away from the "is this nightmare almost over" diagram of the plane's progress.

Another important, yet often overlooked duty for nervous flyers is monitoring the engine sound. Signs of trouble are when it's loud, too soft, or too grindy. I also find pilots frequently slow the plane down too much on initial descent.

Don't forget to throw coins into the engines "for good luck".

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/airline-sues-man-who-t...

I meant I'd only flown first twice, both times with BA. I've flown business many times, across a few carriers (although mostly BA). Never have I had a "living room experience" though!

As long as it's one of their newer planes, I find BA's business to be "good enough"; the food is invariably shite, the service is usually shite, but the wines are decent and you can sleep, But you're correct it's not as good as others (e.g. Singapore Airlines).

The couple of times I flew first with BA, I have to say I was mightily dissapointed - no way was it worth twice the price of business... it was barely any better at all. Luckily they were free upgrades!

TBH, all of BA feels like it's stagnated for 1-2 decades, and is slowly becoming a budget airline - but without the budget prices.

>But you're correct it's not as good as others (e.g. Singapore Airlines).

Yep, I just flew twice on Singapore Airlines, on 777s, and it was excellent, even in the economy section. Service was fantastic, food was fantastic (for airline food), I couldn't complain.

I think, at this point in time, the Asian and Middle Eastern airlines are what you want to fly on, because the American and European ones mostly suck. Some of the European ones are still supposed to be pretty good (like KLM I think), but all the American ones are horrible, and many of the European ones don't have the greatest reputations either (e.g. RyanAir).