I had heard about British Airways problems with apps leading up to our recent trip. There were stories of their website going down and flight cancellations but did not imagine that after weeks of planning our adventure to Costa Rica that BA would be hit yet again by gremlins.
News channels carried news of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and alongside the headlines, news that BA cancelled all domestic flights for the weekend, but the good news was that long hauls including ours from Gatwick were were on time.
The inconsistency to notifications and check-in methods was apparent when you arrived at the check-in desks.
Those that had been notified of Verifly (an app to verify your required documents) and those that had no idea what the BA reps were talking about all were processed in a chaotic manner.
The Verifly app helped check your vaccinations, and passenger locator QR code into Costa Rica. Apparently when all is working well you can book in online, but not this weekend.
I upgraded to premium plus or as BA call it World Traveller Plus.
The seats in this cabin area are more spacious, have a better rake and entertainment system and for such a long flight we felt it was worth it.
The cabin staff were super efficient and couldn’t do enough for us to make the journey as pleasant as possible.
San Jose, Costa Rica is 5427 miles from the UK and takes 11 hrs 35 mins going and approx 1 hour less on the way back. I was curious as to the route the flight would take, wondering if we stay close to land or over the ocean, but it was not long before we discovered the direct route over the Atlantic, passing Cuba, Jamaica and landing in central America right between Nicaragua and Panama.
The time difference is 6 hours from the UK and with 27 different microclimates we were told not to worry about the weather forecasts.. they were never right.
This plane was a Boeing 777-200 / 200ER with two Rolls Royce engines and 219 passengers on board.
The onboard entertainment system had movies, games, music and much more. I chose to watch a couple of movies.
Lunch was good as was the wine and soft drinks.
Overall I’m glad we flew British Airways. It was a long flight and we felt safe.
