[TiredOldHack2]

Directed mainly at BA. At a time when you want to hang on to your frequent flyers at all costs, it does seem a strange strategy to say: “Well, Mr Gold Card Holder in J or F, here’s your meal. Sorry it’s crap, but it’s so our cabin crew don’t catch Covid-19.”
Surely the risk in serving food is the same whatever the food is? I can see there might be a case for not doing hot food (though I’m sceptical) but if you’re going to serve cold food in a box, can’t you make it the bloody best cold food you can find?
Otherwise this smacks of pure cost-cutting.
Am I being unfair? First World problems?

6 users thanked author for this post.

simeoncox, LuganoPirate, Swissdiver, openfly, thebigseats, PointyMark

[SimonS1]

[postquote quote=1000878][/postquote]

Where BA is involved there will always be an element of cheapskating, even in the good times.

On the other hand I can understand the general desire to ‘play it safe’ and have things handled by as few people as possible.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53091149

First world problems – yes, I would say so. At this point I would be happy just to travel, and not be bothered with the is the lounge open, my food is average, why type of champagne are they serving type routine.

[capetonianm]

Here’s a way round it which would probably cause less disgruntlement amongst those who feel the need to be fed and watered on board.

What don’t the airlines give a physical or electronic voucher which is produced with the boarding pass, the value of which is determined by the class of service on the ticket, and which can be redeemed at all or any of the airport food outlets, either for a meal before the flight or food to take on board?

Many people wouldn’t use the vouchers, so the cost to the airline of the scheme comes down, and in order to prevent people selling them on, they would be barcoded to only be valid for a limited time period before the flight.

AeroCruz cheapskate airlines would be happy, customers would be happy, and there would be no waste.

4 users thanked author for this post.

PointyMark, ImissConcorde, Frederic, Bullfrog

[nevereconomy]

The BA longhaul boxed meal does have a hot entree. If they gave a voucher, are there any food outlets open yet in T5 ?

[SimonS1]

[quote quote=1000893]What don’t the airlines give a physical or electronic voucher which is produced with the boarding pass, the value of which is determined by the class of service on the ticket, and which can be redeemed at all or any of the airport food outlets, either for a meal before the flight or food to take on board?[/quote]

Just to clarify – at Heathrow everywhere apart from Boots and WH Smith is closed. There are no “airport food outlets” at present.

1 user thanked author for this post.

capetonianm

[capetonianm]

For obvious reasons, I haven’t been to Heathrow for months, so I wasn’t aware of that.

It might be something for the future though, since ‘normal’ service as we knew it may never be resumed and BA in particular would be delighted to find a way to save a few Pesetas! There is a huge amount of food wastage and I always though the system that LH used for a short while on shorter flights, where you could help yourself to drinks and snacks from a stand at the boarding gate was an excellent idea. You would always get a small number of people who would make pigs of themselves but that must have been offset by savings in other areas.

1 user thanked author for this post.

JJ

[esselle]

[postquote quote=1000893][/postquote]

I am sure the technology exists for this to work, but I am not sure the operators of food and drink outlets at airports would want to give BA credit, and it would entail loads of new accounting issues for both submitting invoices, and getting paid.

Of course the scheme could only ever work on outbound flights from UK airports; inbound would not be able to cope with this.

[AMcWhirter]

…”huge amount of food wastage.”

Manchester is a fraction the size of Heathrow and handles relatively few long-haul flights (with their more elaborate catering needs) but even so the former recently donated one million surplus meals which would otherwise have been wasted.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/plane-food-inflight-meals-airline-disadvantaged-vulnerable-hungry-manchester-airport-open-kitchen-a9491726.html

1 user thanked author for this post.

EU_Flyer

[MartynSinclair]

[quote quote=1000880]At this point I would be happy just to travel, and not be bothered with the is the lounge open, my food is average, why type of champagne are they serving type routine.[/quote]

Just a clean seat and surrounds, upstairs on the 380 to Asia… dreaming into the weekend…

[ASK1945]

capetonianm wrote: ” …………………… the system that LH used for a short while on shorter flights, where you could help yourself to drinks and snacks from a stand at the boarding gate”.

I have seen this system used several times on internal flights, with different airlines, in the USA.

[TiredOldHack2]

I’m supposedly going to JNB in early October. I see they’re using a 777 instead of the A380, Boo!

[nevereconomy]

ASK1945 – I think too much risk of handling in that idea currently – unless they had a glove wearing person to hand it to the passenger?
Also I see in the article on this site about CI coming back to London – they offer boxed meal with hot main, so another one doing the same as BA.

1 user thanked author for this post.

ASK1945

[ontherunhome]

Health and safety is all about doing things safely, not an excuse to not do things. With careful thought and safe systems of work, you can do almost anything safely. It just takes a will to do it. Just look at the engineers who work on high tension electric lines, without turning them off.

It always annoys me to see organisations blaming elf and safety, to reduce or stop doing something, when the reality is usually due to cost cutting or indifference to their customers. In the case of BA probably both. World class airlines are doing better, then again BA is not a world class airline.

4 users thanked author for this post.

PatJordan, cwoodward, Jacob, thebigseats

[cwoodward]

I am wondering what is the story here as in my experience BA have always served low quality food – just some is even lower quality than in the big seats.
When many decent airlines are putting in considerable effort to offer a decent food service and this is very poor publicity for BA.
Captive market?

1 user thanked author for this post.

TupeloKid

[FaroFlyer]

It is good that this forum is getting back to normal, criticising BA.

Aaah! The good old days. 🙂

10 users thanked author for this post.

kevin46, PointyMark, TupeloKid, Flyboy18, Jacob, JJ, TominScotland, Montysaurus, PatJordan, cwoodward

[Author]

Posts