I used to love flying BA to London, because one; they had premium economy and when for some odd reason when I book premium economy they would give me some free upgrade to Business for free. Those where the golden days of BA, but as you might have heard British Airways have bought out BMI airlines and merged with Iberia. Since it brought the airline, it bought its planes, its routes and its landing slots. So now for example in Egypt BA has switched the flight that it has back and forth to Cairo from the large Boeing 777 plans that had a four class configuration to the smaller BMI plane that has 2 class configuration (business & economy). They did because well let’s face it nowadays the Cairo route is not making enough profit for them, so they need to cut down the cost of it, which is bringing in smaller plane. The thing that annoyed me about this is two days before my flight they emailed me the below, and based on this email I thought OMG THEY ARE UPGRADING THE PLANES… but when I got on the plane I actually found that they downsized the plane instead !!! Trickery PR I must say.

below was the press-release, that was NOT sent to me as flyer with BA, but got it from a friend in the airline industry.

In a move that is sure to create better operational efficiency and is also likely to allow flyers taking flights tickets to enjoy more comfort, British Airways will be operating the Airbus A321 on its daily Cairo-London route. From January 2013, A321 will be replacing the Boeing 777 on the Cairo bound flights. Boeing 777 will be used by the airline on its long-haul flights of more than 5 hours. Travellers taking tickets with the newly-refurbished modern aircraft on the Cairo flights ticket, will have the option of booking their tickets on 23 business-class cabins or making tickets reservations on 131 economy-class seats. The business-class seats with 78″ lie-flat beds with 45″ seat pitch will surely offer greater personal space and high comfort for air travellers. The aircraft’s economy-class seats feature a 31″ pitch in a state-of-the-art design and has a new trendy look. Additionally, those taking their flights tickets for the Airbus A321 would be pleasantly surprised by the Thales i5000 AVOD in-flight entertainment system in all seats. “The A321 aircraft is a great asset to the British Airways fleet and combined with our cutting-edge in-flight entertainment, enhanced catering, and the experience of our Arabic-speaking cabin crew, we feel confident that our loyal customers will enjoy the best possible experience with British Airways,” said Mervat Alfy, BA’s Commercial Manager in Egypt. “The Airbus A321 is much better suited to the Cairo-London route in term of range, capacity, operating costs and fuel efficiency. This change will enable us to better serve the route and continue to offer our Egyptian customers more competitive fares while experiencing the superior service,” continued Alfy.