British Airways A350s

The toilet distribution was my own comment, not from BA.

I think the media coverage is all about "BA’s Director of Brand and Customer Experience Tom Stevens admitted the issue in response to a question about how they plan to improve BA for both crew and passengers."

www.turningleftforless.com/news-ba-to-reconsider-a350-layout-heathrow-half-term-strike-update-and-new-4-hour-pcr-test-at-heathrow/

"Stevens acknowledged that the cabin configuration or LOPA (Layout of passenger accommodations) as it is known in the business was causing particular issues in the Business Class cabin and that BA was discussing changes to the LOPA with Airbus for future deliveries of the aircraft."

“It’s fair to say that some of the aircraft we have today were not designed to be crew friendly or service centric,” Stevens told employees in the internal Q&A session.

www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2022/02/05/british-airways-admits-its-reevaluating-configuration-of-flagship-airbus-a350-jets-and-a380s/

I don't know about the problem with Galley space, I can only imagine that squeeze in 12 more Business Suite by only removing 16 Economy seats, every inch have to be saved.  Maybe the front galley suffered too much squeeze and make cooking and preparing food too much a challenge.

On the other hand my understanding is, the old BA business seats (was very innovative flat bed when it was introduced, but pretty old product when they were replaced) were very open space, so even with narrow corridor the cabin crew can reach/serve passengers easily.

With the new BA business suite - narrow corridor with high-wall and door structure, passengers can enjoy privacy, but making the cabin crew job very awkward.  So not just a single galley issue for the cabin crew.

Unless to lower the wall and/or remove the door (both are crucial for the new business suite), with 4-seat each row, I can't see how they can fix this problem.

I don't feel this is a BA only problem, any airlines trying to fit suite (especially with a door) with today's business class density, all facing more or less the same issue.  I remember all Virgin Atlantic cabin crew prefer to deliver food to each passengers in Upper class, rather than using any kind of trolley - I think only the afternoon tea is served on a small trolley, all meals including breakfast were always delivered by hand.

Thanks to kronus sharing this report www.iairgroup.com/~/media/Files/I/IAG/documents/IMS/interim-management-report-for-full-year-to-december-31-2021.pdf

Page 11-12, "During 2021, four Airbus A350 aircraft and three Boeing 787 aircraft were not delivered as anticipated and are now expected in 2022. As a response to the continued impact of COVID-19 and related travel restrictions, the Group continued to take actions to preserve liquidity by reducing certain project-related expenditure, whilst continuing to invest in key projects, including cyber-related investments. As a result, capital expenditure for 2021 reduced to €0.7 billion."

* This is for the whole IAG group, not just BA - as we don't have an IAG thread.

So they claim the delay is because of Covid, not influence from Qatar.

Within the table on page 104, it says the group now has 26 commitments, and 52 options!

I was only aware of 18 options from BA, this seems a significant increase of options, probably as exchange for delaying the deliveries in 2021.

New frame in the pipeline

Tails in shed
563 – A35K British Airways

digitalairliners.com/2022/03/05/log-toulouse-blagnac-tls-05-03-2022/

No worries, the only problem is the BA flight was on a B777, so wrong thread 😉