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Hack your British Airways short haul seats

Yesterday and today I am hopping between Jersey, London Gatwick and Amsterdam on Europe's most notorious Tier Point Run. I managed to get tickets for both Club Europe and Euro Traveller cabins which have recently been refurbished.

What I hadn't realised before was how easy it was to convert the middle of the new style seats between Club Europe and Euro Traveller configurations. I spent around a minute fiddling around with the seat before I realised what was possible.

This trick works in Euro Traveller too as I was sat in seat 10A on one of the flights today. The only requirement is that it needs to be the new slim-style seats. If you have the big blue padded seats then you are in the old style cabin.

Who might want to do this? Well if you're sat in Club Europe by yourself, as I was today, then you can take the middle seat and have ample arm space. If you're travelling in Euro Traveller and there's only one other passenger beside you, you can both enjoy Club Europe configuration. If you're travelling as a pair…well you can decide how you want it!

The video below shows how I did it. If it doesn't appear properly, here is the link to the YouTube page.

One thing I forgot to mention in the video; the trigger to move the armrests is located between the middle and aisle seats, so between seats B and C, or D and E.  If when trying to move the armrest it gets a little stuck at the plastic hinge, you can lift the plastic up slightly and the armrest will move into position.

2 Comments

  1. Theses aren’t the new shorthaul ba seats. The video you have is for the exBMI planes which had a tray for the middle seat and which fitted in the back of the middle seat.

    The new shorthaul seats which I think are now on all a321 & a320s at LHR, and also starting to be fitted on the a319s at lhr do have a similar arrangement with a tray for the middle seat. However the tray comes out from underneath the middle seat instead. I think the principle is the same though so there are a few clips to undo and you can then move the tray out over the middle seat.

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