UPDATED Washington Dulles BA Lounge & the BA216 A380 home

Just a couple of weeks ago, British Airways opened its new Galleries lounge at Washington Dulles Airport, coinciding with the new BA A380 route between IAD and London Heathrow.

As chance would have it last week I was flying British Airways business class to and from Washington and so was able to visit!  Not many photos – I was absolutely shattered…

Quick tipple after take off

I had planned to be on the A380 flight for my outbound leg, but despite my careful travel plans (3 hours allotted to cover a 70minute journey up the Motorway to Heathrow) I didn’t manage to make the flight as the motorway was blocked by a car accident.  Thankfully I had a fully-flexible business class ticket which meant that rather than having a melt-down on the motorway (ok – I had a minor one), I was able to (using the car’s hands free) call up the travel people and get myself bumped onto a later flight.  I’ll have to try the A380 out on another occasion instead.

BA customer service were lovely at the airport when I went to retrieve a new boarding pass (the app does not catch up at all quickly) – not only did they do their best to re-order me a special meal (wasn’t possible sadly) but they also reassured me that my upper deck spot on the 747 flight would be much more peaceful, even if it wasn’t all spangly new like I was hoping!

Upstairs on the 747

The upper deck of the 747 does indeed feel very exclusive, and as a result very quiet. I don’t think I have ever been on a 747 before, but I can see why they have such a following!!  I would admit that the surroundings are quite old and tired, but on the return leg I slept for 6 hours straight with no disturbance, I suspect that even in the smallest Club cabin on the A380 that there would have been more comings and goings to disturb me?  What I was surprised about however was that for the red eye flight, the upper deck is not a sleeper service.  That would make a lot of sense to me, especially given the pre-flight dining you can enjoy at Dulles, more of that later. Virgin do something along those lines on their red eye flights. To be fair, most people sleep on a red eye flight anyway, but when I got up to go to the loo I was pleased that I wasn’t lieing next to the 2 people in the cabin that were watching films or tapping away on their keyboards.

So, the lounge.  I didn’t get a great deal of time in the lounge, but I had enough to relax after an whistle stop trip.  Fast track through security at Dulles isn’t quite what it says which ate some time up… Business passengers fast track through passport control, but then pile straight into the long and slow-moving bag and body scanning queues, there is no separate lane here. I don’t think I have ever stood in such a slow moving queue and with so many people clearly so unfamiliar with the whole security process… Argh!

The lounge is new and swanky.  It is much more ‘first-like’ than a normal Galleries lounge.  A few years ago the Newark lounge re-opened and I thought that was good, but this is even better.

What every other Galleries lounge is missing!

Things I particularly liked:

• It feels exclusive (although I suspect it is a little less so on A380 days) which is a novelty when so many of the Galleries lounges are creaking at the seams, especially in London.
• It has been designed, it isn’t just a bundle of chairs and magazines.  It is a really odd-shaped space (which adds to the airiness and charm) which has really been made the most of.  Even the toilets and showers are a little more thought through than the standard white walled affairs!
• It looks different – normally across the world a Galleries lounge is a Galleries lounge is a Galleries lounge… Same chairs, tables, drinks points etc.  Very refreshing to see different furniture and lighting etc!  Plenty to look at!
• It has a bar, which happily serves champagne (other lounges it is only those ‘in the know’ that realise fizz is available’) and is also a very jovial place.  Many people passing through IAD are travelling alone on business and so it is nice to sit at the bar and have a natter with them on the friendly bar staff that have an eye for re-filling glasses before you need to ask.
• Pre-flight dining is great – there is a choice of pre-prepared bits, as well as options for made to order stir-fry.
• Friendly reception greetings – pointing out where everything is, confirming without being asked to that my special meal had been loaded onto the plane.

Formal pre-flight dining means no red-eyes on the red eye

Closing thoughts – it isn’t the Concorde Lounge, but as far as business class lounges go it is one of the best I have found.  It draws on the modern ideas that a Virgin lounge has and delivers them in a more classy and exclusive manner.  Already looking forward to my next trip through the airport, although hopefully it won’t be either side of a transatlantic day trip!

Improvements – once they turf you out of the lounge ready for boarding, the process grinds to a halt again and loading the plane was slow, even in the ‘fast track’ lane.  As a result the exclusivity and chillaxing benefits of the lounge diminish… And that was just on a 747, how it works on an A380 I can’t imagine!!

Update – flying home in club on the A380…

And so I’ve just been back to America and there is now a daily flight on the A380 – the 6.30pm flight out of Dulles to Heathrow.  Book me on that flight!

I had 2 concerns about this flight – that it would mean the lounge would creak at the seams and secondly that boarding would be a trauma.  Neither were in issue – happy days!  The lounge was busier of course, but still quiet enough to work and certainly nothing like as busy as the London ones.  Loading was pretty quick too – we left the lounge just after the flight was called and pretty much walked straight onto the plane.  Granted the plane was not full, but even so – the plan of boarding the plane across 4 separate gates depending on row number worked very smoothly.  The air bridge took us straight to the right deck so it is hard to miss how big the plane is – it also means the swanky stairways on the plane aren’t used which is a shame.

As for the flight – very pleasing indeed.  I was upstairs in the front cabin which was one of the smallest in business class.  It was incredibly quiet throughout, a quiet humming and very little engine noise at all.  The sheer volume of business class seats available does indeed mean that you are unlikely to feel ‘special’ in the way you would upstairs on a 747, but no reduction in service levels.  My only complaint is that after take off, and on a red eye flight, up went the lights followed by noisy dinner service for those that hadn’t dined in the lounge.  This is frustrating – BA really should consider making one of the cabins a sleeper-service and pre-advertising which one.  The plane is big enough to do this and it would improve the service considerably as most people on the flight would be going straight back to work after landing and would want to maximise sleep.

Photo credit

The layout upstairs goes 2-3-2 and so the cabin is a little more compact than on a 777.  The overhead storage on the window side of the aisle is reduced, but I was still able to get a good-sized roll-on into it with no problem.  Sitting in the window seat, much like the 747 upper deck, there are storage bins and a side board which I really like.  The seat is the same as on the older business class but the décor is more grey – as a result it looks cleaner and smarter.

What surprised me was how different the turbulence was on the A380 to a smaller plane.  We were still very affected (presumably as we had such strong tail winds that took 60mins off the flying time) and bounced a lot, but it was a lot more ‘floaty’ and a lot easier to sleep through!  Despite my physics a-level which made me accept how planes ‘fly’ I am still amazed how slow the plane felt at the point of take off and landing, I am sure it was going faster than a smaller plane, but it definitely felt less of aggressive in manoeuveres than a smaller one!