It’s finally time to finish up the trip to India! I’ve been in the process of moving locally for the last month and so have been bogged down by that, so these have been coming out a bit more slowly than I would’ve liked, but here we are: British Airways First Class from London to San Francisco on the A380. I’ve decided to split this review into two parts. First, I’ll cover the Concorde Room at Heathrow Airport, which is a lounge that I haven’t been to since 2022. Back in 2022, we were still coming out of the pandemic, so I was curious to see if anything had been changed or updated. For context, in the Galleries First Lounge, which Oneworld Emerald frequent fliers can access, the main change is that you can now only order drinks from the QR code and not hot food any longer.
For my overnight layover, I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn that’s located at Hatton Cross tube station. I think I’ve settled on that hotel being my preferred hotel for overnight layovers at Heathrow. The Terminal 5 Sofitel is always so expensive whenever I check it out and the other major hotels all require an uber or bus. The Garden Inn shines because I can just take the tube two stops, which is great. So my journey to the airport this morning was very easy!
Upon arriving at Heathrow, I went directly to the First Wing check-in area, which is also where Oneworld Emerald members can check-in, so it’s huge.
Upon clearing the dedicated First Wing security, I walked straight through the Galleries First lounge and scanned into the Concorde Room. After scanning in, I headed to the right. The Concorde Room is, for the most part, one large room, with very nicely appointed furnishings.
There are two additional areas beyond the primary room. The first is the Concorde Terrace, which has a nose cone from the Concorde on it, but I didn’t end up spending any time there because I was much more interested in seeing what the breakfast offering was going to be. I do want to note though that the bathrooms in the Concorde Room are the same as in the Galelries First lounge and so have a very sterile asthetic to them. I guess it’s good that a bathroom feels and looks clean.
I headed over to the dining area, where I was promptly seated, but it took quite a while for someone to come by and take my order, which happens very frequently to me in British Airways lounges. Once she arrived, I ordered the pancakes and an eggs benedict. I was interested to see what coffee was available, so I headed over to the barista to see if there was any cold brew. There was not; the only thing he could offer me was an iced americano. I tried to decline his offer, but he wouldn’t let me, so I finally accepted it. And as soon as he asked where I’d be sitting (and I said the dining room), instead of making the drink, he went and just ordered an iced americano from my server. My server then came over to confirm it, which was supremely a waste of everyone’s time and just simply annoyed me. And it all could’ve been avoided by him just letting me decline the drink I didn’t want. However, once all the food arrived, I had quite the feast on my hands: a mimosa, pancakes, eggs benedict, a water, and an iced americano. Not a bad spread all things considered.
However, all too soon for my liking, it was time to head to the gate for my flight. British Airways doesn’t offer any type of escort for first class passengers to the gate, so I had to make my own way over. Interestingly though, despite having read about first class escorts on other airlines, I have yet to fly an airline whose first class product offers an escort service. Maybe I’ll pay for American Airlines’ Five Star Service some time so that I can get a similar effect.
But all was well when I got to the gate and saw the A380 that would be taking us to San Francisco that day. This would also be my first time flying on the lower deck of an A380, so I was intrigued to see what that would be like!
Since this is only part one of this flight’s review, I won’t do a full summary yet, but I’ll score the ground experience here as a 4/5.
Had anything changed since 2022? Not really, which makes sense because by 2022, the UK had lifted every rule even remotely COVID related.
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