British Airways Open Day - Explore and Discover 2015

            On the weekend of 6^th-7^th June 2015, selected aviation bloggers, enthusiasts, and British Airways Staff were invited to go to London Heathrow for an event British Airways called ‘Explore and Discover’.

             The event was to showcase BA’s latest innovations and they had a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, G-ZBJC, a Boeing 747-400, G-CIVG, a Boeing 777-300ER, G-STBL, an Airbus A319, an Airbus A380, G-XLEA, and a very special visitor in regards to the Airbus A350-900 XWB, F-WWCY, which was flown especially for the weekend from Toulouse.

 Inside the hangars were some of British Airways’ Partners, such as engine suppliers like Rolls Royce, General Electric and Pratt and Whitney, eagerly showing off their new engines with the RR Trent 1000 powering BA’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners, GE with the GE90 which powers some of BA’s Boeing 777-200’s along with all of their 777-300’s and P&W with their latest engine for the Airbus a320NEO family, the PW1000. Pratt and Whitney had demonstrations and comparisons between the newer PW1000 and the older v2500 which powers all but two of BA’s a320 family aircraft, showing the noise reductions and the new revolutionary gearbox design on the PW1000.

Airbus and Boeing also had a stand each, with Airbus keen to show off their A380 and A350 XWB products, with models and explanations of what was new on the A350 and how it makes it so efficient, like the new engines, the materials used and the shape of the wing. Boeing were showing people the 787 with all of its new technological advancements and the 777-300ER and how it was the largest twin engine commercial jet ever built.

British Airways also put up exhibits, one was of their new short haul ‘Club Europe’ seats, which are a lot more up to date than their old ones. There was an A380 escape slide on show and took up a lot of hangar floor as you could expect. The Concorde, G-BOAD, made an appearance as well and was put pride of place in the centre of the hangar. There were mock ups of premium lounges with staff telling people about what was so special about the BA service away from the economy cabin, with amenity kits being handed out from business and first class.

Apart from the aircraft outside, there were demonstrations from different ground crews with tugs and baggage handlers all showing off their respective jobs. There was even a demonstration of how to wash an aircraft with a highly specialised bit of kit on the 747.

We then got to board the aircraft, and starting with the A350 XWB. Although this was an Airbus test aircraft, it had almost a full airline mock up configuration with economy and business class seats, with only a couple of rows taken out to make room for a flight engineers position. The aircraft was fitted in a 3-3-3 configuration for economy and a 1-2-1 for business. The flight deck of the A350 is one of the best around, with a full glass display, lots of room and great visibility.

            The 787 was in BA’s configuration with ‘World Traveller’, ‘World Traveller Plus’ and Business class cabins. People were even looking around the crew rest areas which is obviously out of bounds for everyday passengers. Although cramped above the ceiling it’s still pretty spacious up there, with room for 4 beds.

            In contrast the 747 was outdated but still quite nice inside but with the First class cabin in the nose of the aircraft being recently redone. G-CIVG, at the time of our tour, was the only BA 747 to offer Wi-Fi with a member of staff telling us information while we waited to get in the flight deck. Upstairs is a really nice place to be, with it being quiet and extremely spacious with only 1-1 configuration in business class.

            In the A319, was BA’s new ‘Club Europe’, this makes the aircraft really neat and professional. The designer of the new seats was on board and talking to him he said it took nearly 2 years for the designs to get implemented onto the aircraft from first draughts, saying how many tests they had to perform on them to meet aviation standards.

            Overall we had a great day with the staff being really helpful with explaining things when we had questions and with the amount of knowledge they had we went away a lot wiser about things. If BA do this sort of thing again, we would recommend you going as it is an amazing day for any enthusiast.

You can watch our video from the day here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtWWks107fA

MT Aviation