British Airways has been operating a direct flight between London Heathrow and Chicago O’Hare for years and my first flight there was back in 2008.
At the time I was flying from Edinburgh to London then Chicago, changing to an American Airlines flight to St Louis. I was an exchange student in Columbia, Missouri at the time and a BA flight to Chicago was the most convenient to get there.
This time around, 10 years later, I flew on the much newer British Airways BA297 flight, using the Airbus A380. The return flight cost GBP467 non-stop, having booked it four months in advance in February, flying in June.
My seat was on the upper deck of this Airbus A380 both there and back, which in retrospect was a pretty bad part of the plane as the overhead compartments are extremely small!
I’ve flown on an Airbus A380 a few times already but on those flights my seat was downstairs like my flight from Paris to Singapore or from London to Los Angeles.
Both those occasions I sat at the back of the plane, by the emergency exit and I had a lot of legroom and space between the seat and the window. On the BA297 flight to Chicago I felt crammed in with little legroom and the seat wasn’t very comfortable either.
Not Like Premium Economy
I remember the Air France flight to Singapore had different seats and I was thinking it felt like flying on the Premium Economy class. Certainly not on this BA297 flight to Chicago!
I felt like a herring in a tin and the worst was I could not even lift the armrest properly, so when I wanted to get up it was rather difficult.
I would say BA opted for the cheapest interior on this flight and it felt exactly like that – the screen was very small with the old-fashioned remote control and poor quality jack plugs for the headphones.
Anyhow, here is my detailed review of this Airbus A380 flight from London Heathrow to to Chicago O’Hare, operated by British Airways!
My Detailed BA297 Flight Review
The occasion for my flight was to visit Des Moines in Iowa and attend the World Pork Expo where I met a lot of my contacts in the feed industry. I flew to Chicago on the British Airways operated BA297 flight on Friday evening from Heathrow and arrived in Chicago the same evening at 7PM.
This BA297 flight was pretty convenient because it meant I would have the weekend in Chicago then drive to Des Moines discovering the Midwest and the historic Lincoln Highway.
When the plane touched down I hopped on the airport terminal bus to the car rental center and picked up my Advantage Car Rental for the week. I booked the car on Holiday Autos, but more about that later!
Boarding At Heathrow Airport
Back to Heathrow for now! We boarded BA297 at gate C62 at Heathrow Terminal 5 after taking the airport transport from the T5 main terminal building to this outbuilding.
I must say after all the funfare and cheers at the time of the new Airport Terminal’s launch it feels pretty mediocre. Not to mention that at the time of opening the terminal they’d lost hundreds of thousands of bags! What shambles!
So basically when you fly from T5 at Heathrow, you need to track along to various other terminal buildings using a train which is pretty inconvenient I would say. It might have been fashionable to trapse along for miles between terminal buildings in the 1960s or 1970s, but not any more!
What I would like to see one day is walking up to a terminal, or putting my bike down at a bike rack, locking it up, walking in to the departures hall after a swift security check and hopping on the plane in the same building! No miles of tracking and running and so on and so forth!
Instead of this, I arrived at Heathrow at 1415 then went through security checks and waited around for half an hour for British Airways to announce the gate. The transfer to gate C62 then took about 5-10 minutes with walking and train transfer included.
I waited about 40 minutes at gate C62 before departure, and the airline also had to check my passport pre-boarding as I was selected for a “random check”.
BA finally started boarding people in Group 4 (which I was in) about 15 minutes behind schedule as the plane arrived late and so it was delayed. As a side note, I have never travelled on a British Airways operated flight that departed on time! Anyhow, I hope to live to see the day when they don’t blame it on something else but their incompetence!
BA297 London Heathrow To Chicago
When we finally boarded the plane and sat down, all buckled up the pilot announced that two passengers had not turned up so they needed to unload their bags from the hold! I could not believe it!
So we were delayed another 45 minutes while the luggage crew unloaded their bags and then this delay meant we were given a later slot to take off, further delaying us!
Unfortunately the cabin crew had very little common sense and instead of changing the boring BA boarding music they left it on repeat at full blast! I asked one of them to at least turn the music down but she said it had to be at that volume level!
I was like, OK but can’t you at least change the music? So she said no. This meant that for 45 minutes I was listening to the BA tune in classical style which after the 6th repeat began to drive me nuts!
The Seat Was…Uncomfortable
The seat was not very comfortable unfortunately and the bad music choice compounded this so I wasn’t off to a good start. The biggest issue for me was that the backrest was too straight and the headrest was not flexible enough so I started to become restless pretty soon.
Fortunately the flight time was an hour shorter than usual because of strong backwinds, the captain told us, delivering at least one good news during the flight! Shortly before landing he told us that it was going to be sunny on arrival at 27 degrees Celsius, which was nice, although slightly colder than in London which on the other hand was highly unusual!
BA Luggage Allowance
The luggage allowance on this BA flight was similar to other long haul flights operated by British Airways. I travelled with hand luggage only as I was away for only one week, so I carried on a small rucksack and a small wheelie bin. If I wanted to I could have checked in a 23 kg bag included in the ticket price but I thought it would have been too much hassle.
They served dinner about an hour after take off and I pre-orded my meal so it came before everybody else’s. I was flying economy and I did not expect anything hugely amazing and I was not disappointed. It was chicken with some pasta and cake, bread and fruit salad, filling enough but definitely not Michelin star rated!
A second smaller meal was also included in the flight and the staff also put out free drinks at the back with snacks for people that got hungry mid-flight.
The TV Screen On Board British Airways
Like I already mentioned, the screen was pretty small and the sound quality rather awful, so I watched one movie then gave up as it was really a struggle to hear anything. Also, I did not want to damage my eardrums by turning the volume to full blast!
The toilets were on the small side and they smelled like public toilets, nothing like the luxurious toilets with flowers and hand creams on my last Eva Air flight to Bangkok! That I will remember for the rest of my life as it was the first flight where I found flowers in the bathroom on-board a plane!
Overall Impressions Of My Flight To Chicago With British Airways
You might say “just shut up you immigrant and stop moaning about our Great British Airways”, plus you got what you paid for, but my response would be as follows. BA keeps playing up how great they are and how they are this, that and the other, but every time I fly with BA I see fake smiles on the flight attendant’s faces and mostly it just feels disorganised and pretentious.
This flight to Chicago from London was no different and my friend who flew on Norwegian told me he was treated like a king on premium economy for slightly more than what I paid for my economy seat! Next time I am flying to Los Angeles with Norwegian and I expect to get what I paid for: a comfortable seat and a nice screen to enjoy watching a couple of movies then sleeping through the flight!
