The humble seat pocket can be a treasure trove of excitement on some airlines. I don’t mean left over surprises from other passengers, either!
Usually they are filled with reading material and a few other interesting bits and pieces. Let’s have a look at a typical flight in Club Europe on British Airways and see what we can find.
BA830 – London Heathrow to Dublin (LHR-DUB)
5 July 2017
Airbus A319 – G-EUOE
Seat: Club Europe 1A
Departure: 14:10 Arrival: 15:35
Cabin crew offer a hot towel to refresh yourself before flight which are always a bit like a lottery. Will it be barely warm or will it be like molten lava? Will it be slightly damp or Niagara Falls level wet? Exciting!
Afternoon Tea
Flights between 2pm and 5pm are designated as receiving an afternoon tea service on British Airways. This is a choice between finger sandwiches or a Ploughman’s Lunch. The latter is more substantial so I always go for that. I still miss the scones!
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- Hot towel roulette!
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- Ploughman’s lunch
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- Scotch egg, cheese, meat, yum!
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- Cake and bread
Pre-packaged bread should not be on the tray, it should be provided from the basket. A full bar service is offered and Champagne is available. This is proper Champagne from France and is something British Airways does quite well.
Club Europe Cabin
We will get to the mysteries of the seat pocket in a moment. When you sit in the bulkhead seat there is a sign referring to your life jacket and the seat belt.
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- Bulkhead sign
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- Speedmarque and moving map
People often put their feet on the bulkhead which marks up what is quite a nice cabin feature. It would be an idea to add to the life jacket and seat belt sign with a notice asking people to keep their feet off the bulkhead.
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- High over the Irish Sea
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- Champagne Castelnau
Flip down screens show a moving map on the short flights such as that between London and Dublin. People enjoy seeing their route progress, altitude and so on, even if the display is quite an old version of the moving map.
Secrets of the Seat Pocket
British Airways always have a number of goodies in the seat pocket. In actual fact, they have some of the best in the business as far as I am concerned, so let’s have a look. First, we have the safety card which all airlines must have.
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- Stuffed seat pockets in row 1
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- Safety on Board
High Life is the monthly inflight magazine at BA and it usually has quite interesting content. It is a far better magazine than that on other airlines as it does not come across as pages of advertising. Passengers in Club Europe, Club World or First Class also have an additional magazine.
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- High Life Magazine
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- Business Life Magazine
Business Life is a bi monthly magazine for business class passengers. This is filled with interesting insight and articles for the corporate traveller. I quite like it. First passengers get First Life.
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- On Board Menu
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- It’s the air sickness bags!
Economy class passengers on British Airways need to pay for food and drink. The M&S Menu is included in the seat pocket just in case you want to choose from there. Finally, the sick bags – an absolute must on all flights!
Overall Thoughts
Good literature is important in a seat pocket as it provides something to read. Safety information and the sick bags are of course necessary and a good magazine is always a credit to an airline.
What is the best airline magazine you have read? Are they important in this day and age when people have personal devices now? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image via British Airways.
Southwest apparently cut their magazine sharply a few months ago. Both the July and August 2017 issues had less than half the editorial content they usually carry.
I wonder to what extent this defrauds their advertisers, who make their advertising buys based on assumptions about passenger and take-home reading of the magazine that will grossly overstate the visibility of the ads in this stripped-down version.
Interesting, I have never seen their magazine. I imagine the advertisers know about it in one way or another. Thanks for the comment!
OMG this was so well written and funny. Love it!!
Thanks very much, happy to hear you enjoyed it!
I found some (unopened) Biscoff cookies on an AA flight a week ago. They really hit the spot, especially because AA loaded our catering onto the wrong plane.
It was definitely unexpected because I think only DL serves them.
Hahaha! That’s quite random, perhaps someone brought them on board for themselves? Glad they hit the spot. Thanks for the comment!