Some good news on British Airways in-flight food

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Back at the British Airways press event in early April – which now feels like a l-o-n-g time ago – Chairman and CEO Alex Cruz made some passing remarks about reversing some of the cuts on in-flight services.

It seems he meant it.

British Airways BA A380 flying

According to comment from cabin crew on Flyertalk, the following changes were meant to be in place yesterday:

The amuse bouche has returned to First Class

The flowers have returned to the toilets in First Class

Cheese and biscuits, and pretzels, have returned to World Traveller Plus

The contents of the ‘snack basket’ passed around in World Traveller on short routes – which is instead of a 2nd meal – have been improved with passengers allowed to take three items

The latter will undoubtedly please Troy Warfield, BA’s ‘head of customer experience’. There is an internal BA staff video where he talks about how, when he worked a flight one day to see how it was, he saw cabin crew being forced – due to lack of stock – to reprimand small children who tried to take two items from the snack basket.

Given the huge amount of negative publicity that British Airways has received for its service cuts (it was a weird day when even The Economist started quoting HfP) you can’t help but think that some major mistakes have been made. The bad publicity has almost certainly cost the airline far more in bookings than the paltry cost of a pack of World Traveller Plus pretzels or a fun-size chocolate bar.

British Airways A350

Meanwhile ….. at London City

You may have seen a story in some newspapers over the weekend about British Airways being forced to put back the launch of ‘buy on board’ catering at London City Airport due to a legal case. A group had already purchased tickets for travel this Summer when the announcement was made and felt that their contract had been breached. They claimed £156 in compensation.

British Airways revealed during the case that buy on board catering at London City has now been delayed until October and so the claimant had no claim after all.

Some reports put two and two together to get five and thought that BA had delayed buy on board at City because of this case. That is not true. It has apparently been delayed because of issues creating the necessary storage space on the small Embraer aircraft used.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Mark says:

2 May2 May 17:56

The issue I still have is I fly to Dubai overnight fairly regularly in economy and go straight into the office. The cuts really hit home around 6 months ago when flying overnight for breakfast I was offered a muffin and then on my last trip a soreen (sp) malt bar which was awful to say the least. So quite frankly having 3 items still pretty rubbish
Simon says:

3 May3 May 12:02

Good news on the seat selection for HBO fares are back , maybe ba are starting to learn …
Julian says:

3 May3 May 12:57

Sorry about the Off Topic post (clearly forced on me here by the comments section for both the recent Nutmeg topics now being closed and there also being no general HFP discussion forum where I could start a topic of my own) but this is for my small but clearly extremely dedicated band of followers on HFP.

Anyway just to say that Nutmeg credited my avios.com account with 50,000 Avios yesterday (Tuesday 2nd May) only about a week after they had cleared the cheque for £50,000 that Nationwide had sent them in respect of the transfer of my Cash ISA. I did not have to chase Nutmeg in any way to get the Avios credited to my avios.com account but I am told the usual reason they sometimes don’t credit automatically is when customers use a different email address to set up their Nutmeg account from the one that have registered with Avios.
- Julian says:
  
  3 May3 May 13:08
  
  Also coming back on topic I have to say that if the new low level of food in Club Europe is as described (apparently now no Hot Chocolate as well as no port or brandy – already not available last year – and only rubbishy finger sandwiches and no hot meal) and if one looks at Avios redemption availability this summer in Economy (near non existent on most routes to the Med, even in May, June or October low season weeks) vs Club Europe (quite plentiful except for black out periods over bank holidays or the main school summer holiday weeks) one has to conclude that what BA is up to is another form of disguised Avios price rise by making what was a minimum 7,500 Avios old Zone 2 one way redemption + £17.50 in to a 12,750 + £25.00 redemption but with slightly better service, luggage allowance (generally far more than required) and seat room than in Euro Traveller (AKA Economy).
- Rob says:
  
  3 May3 May 14:47
  
  Good stuff, glad it worked out.
  
  Comments close automatically after 3 weeks. This is a spam control exercise (and, frankly, because the old posts are not heavily read so you’re talking to yourself anyway!).
Aspirational Flyer says:

3 May3 May 14:05

Currently taxiing at Gatwick on a BA flight to Lima. Will report back on the catering when I have a few spare minutes, although I assume we will be given a second meal given this is a 12 hour + flight.
startupflyer says:

4 May4 May 16:03

Glad it seems like some good news, after experiencing a pathetic sandwich & a dried out sponge in Club Europe on BCN – LGW yesterday my expectations have been suitably lowered even further than before. I would have preferred to buy one of the M&S offerings.
Rob Henshall says:

5 May5 May 12:07

I’m flying from LHR to Kiev Ukraine. I’m traveling economy. I’m disabled with secondary progressive Multiple Sclerosis and I need to be near the front of the aircraft and the toilet. We booked our seats 7 E & F right behind Club Europe. I use my wheelchair to the aircraft entrance and then use crutches, but I’m very limited on the distance I can walk. BA bumped our seats back to row 12 D & E and they have told me that I can’t use the toilet at the front as this is for Club Europe passengers. They expect me to walk to the back of the plane and use those toilet. I said that would be impossible for me, so they offered to move our seats to row 32 to be near the toilets. I said again, that is impossible as I’m going to find it hard enough getting from row 12 to use the toilet at the front of the plane. Again, I was told the toilet at the front is for Club Europe only. BA said I could upgrade for £360 but I haven’t got that kind of money. So I’m going to the airport on Sunday and hope the crew will allow me to use the toilet at the front. If not, I’ll have to forfeit my 10 day holiday. I’m an Executive Club member, but I’ve dropped down to Blue, I was Silver but due to my illness I’ve slipped to Blue. Whatever has happened to BA?
- the real harry1 says:
  
  5 May5 May 12:29
  
  it’s not ‘BA’ – it’s a single BA representative – I’d get on the phone again to explain the situation to a more sympathetic agent, who would probably get you better seats further forward
  
  on board, I’d be mighty surprised if they don’t let you use the front loo, they leave the curtains open often enough as it is and often don’t seem to care if people from cattle use the front loo (I used to do it for fun as soon as the stay-in-your-seats light went off 🙂 )