Cabin service in BA economy on 747/777

[svw8700]

I am shortly due to travel to JFK with BA, outbound on B777-300 and inbound B747. Can anyone confirm as to what seat rows the cabin service starts at? It sounds petty but I always get left with no choice of meal etc!!!
Any information would be greatly appreciated by this ex crew member!!!

[Taras B]

-you could request a special meal, and it will be served to you first, before everybody else :E

[Mark in CA]

You've discovered my secret! :E

[svw8700]

thanks for your comments guys, but does anyone actually have the answer!!!? :D

[Jarvy]

Normally at the front then work back.
Special meal works as my wife is a veggie and always gets hers long time before I do.

[Dannyboy39]

Isn't it always chicken curry or beef lasagne, anyway? IIRC, it wasn't much to write home about. Once on the way home from DFW, there seemed to be a hell of a lot of people heading to bog cubicles just after landing at LHR! :ooh:

You also get one of those pathetic snack boxes towards the arrival time. Is it really the best they can do? :mad:

[ExXB]

You also get one of those pathetic snack boxes towards the arrival time. Is it really the best they can do? Er, yes. Why would you expect otherwise?

[BlueTui]

The last flight I took with BA, I was lucky enough to rt upgraded to club?'x but could see the wtp offering for brekkie, a muffin and paper cup of coffee??????

My airline manages to offer china cups and full English breakfast in premium... Why can't a much bigger airline???

[Dannyboy39]

Yes they bloody can! Considering the price of the fare. The snack box is something you'd get in a LoCo. A muffin, a Danone Activ bottle, a polo mint and a sandwich. Pathetic.

[easyflyer83]

To be fair the snack box/muffin breakfast are perfectly fine on a eastern seaboard transatlantic. The food hasn't been that great on my recent BA flights but I don't think a second meal is necessary on a 7/8 hour sector. As far as I know, a second meal is provided on 10 hour + sectors.

[ExXB]

Which one is the irony smilie?

[Heathrow Harry]

traveling economy we often buy sandwiches before boarding - at least you have some choice in what you eat............

[InSeat19c]

I flew BA from Zambia to Heathrow recently and was staggered at how rubbish the food was on BA.

The breakfast choice was a mixed grill or the English Breakfast - I asked for the English Breakfast, but seemed to get the same as the person asking for the mixed grill.

It was food but only just.

We took off at about 9am and got the breakfast about an hour later and then nothing apart from glasses of water or juice until about an hour before landing. Then we were given a sandwich.

I had to sneak through 1st class to pinch their peanuts and kit kats as I had gotten so hungry.

If you're up there for the best part of a day, shouldn't you get three meals ie. breakfast, lunch and dinner rather than just breakfast followed by a sandwich about seven hours later ?

[RevMan2]

I self-cater, following Alan Whicker's recommendation of always taking Stilton and a pear. Plus ciabatta with grilled vegetables. Or sushi.

[jetset lady]

My airline manages to offer china cups and full English breakfast in premium... Why can't a much bigger airline???

Because, unless things have changed dramatically, YOUR airline charges extra at the point of booking for meals, as well as on board for drinks, headphones and pretty much everything else. Your holiday, your choice? :hmm:

For all those wondering what has happened to the food on board aircraft, two points. (And please bear in mind, I am talking about your basic point a to point b tickets, not premium cabins)

One - it is a form of transportation. Not a restaurant. (Although, airline advertising execs have to take some of the blame here for somewhat over estimating what can be done with an aircraft oven!)

Two - no one wants to pay for it anymore. Prices that would once have been considered bargain basement are now the norm. Bit by bit, ticket prices have been driven down to ridiculous levels. If you don't believe me, do a comparison from even 15 years ago. Once you take out what the government and airport has nicked, there's not a whole lot left over.

This ideology that it's everyone's right to fly, no matter what their circumstances, has forced ticket prices down. Running costs have gone up, and up, and up a bit more. Something has to give.

That's not to say I like handing out a solitary muffin and paper cup of coffee. But that's the reality and apparently what the paying public want.

[radeng]

>That's not to say I like handing out a solitary muffin and paper cup of coffee. But that's the reality and apparently what the paying public want.<

It's what they are prepared to pay for, not what they want!

Even BA Club Europe is not as good as it used to be, though.

[easyflyer83]

Absolutely. To a large extent the average passenger has their self to blame. I once worked for a carrier that operated under the 'flag carrier' name with full cabin service, only 5 years ago. I once remember cutting a passenger off because they wanted more wine and we only carried a limited amount in order for us to offer wine with dinner. Her retort was, I've paid £150 for this flight. MAN-TFS full comp service. That is what the industry has to deal with.

[WHBM]

>That's not to say I like handing out a solitary muffin and paper cup of coffee. But that's the reality and apparently what the paying public want.<

It's what they are prepared to pay for, not what they want!
Just as a contrary experience.

In my business we typically book when we know we are going, which is normally just a few days beforehand, from London to points like Dubai or New York. This is the sort of business the mainstream carriers like to have. We always book in Y. The fares are typically twice or more what many of my seatmates who could book ahead have paid - maybe up to £1,500 for these sort of sectors. y class.

Yet we get exactly the same sort of minimalised catering, including the BA solitary Polo Mint.

it is a form of transportation. Not a restaurant.No. On the shorter European sectors, doing a day-return out from London and back (once again at the highest fares of the day), leaving the house at 0445, queueing for ever at security, rushing into the cab from arrival airport to meeting, presenting all day, sorting out issues in the "lunch" break, rush back to airport, reverse experience, and home at 9.00 pm, those one-hour sectors in the plane are about the ONLY opportunity to get something. As you look around the cabin you see many others in the same situation. And yet the catering we got 10 years ago has been minimalised. Even when paying over £350 return London to Aberdeen.

Don't get me started on US carriers and their attitude to giving anyone a drink - are they all run by avid teetotallers from Arkansas ?

[rgsaero]

Interesting comments on this thread!

I think that expectations are usually driven by experience (assuming there is some!). If there isn't it will be formed by advertising and other media mostly generated by the carrier. So there's lots of room there for disappointment in providing accurate infortmation!

Fortunately, having retired and stopped flying very regularly, both long and short haul, I have little very recent experience on which to base a view.

However, for the last five years all my long-hauls have been Air NZ to Auckland and onwards, usually via HK. Given my retired status I book steerage and occasionally upgrade. Expectations of sustinence are something before sleep and something after! This is always fulfilled almost always with a choice (sometimes at the back and therefore served last no choice, but if you make a fuss they can always find something from premium or Business!)

Given that a flight from LHR to AUK- is just £341 - 2 sectors each of about 12 hours I reckon that any edible food and wine is brilliant. How DO they do that? (Return to CHC is £681 with Govt taxes etc at £468, so the AUK fare is even less than half that as there's the AUK CHC return to consider!)

As in everything in life - you get what you pay for! Pay more or accept it!

And by the way, Air NZ runs the best upgrade system I know. When you buy a ticket you can "bid" a price for a one class upgrade. You may or may not get it, but when bidding there's a "clock" which tells you whether your bid is strong or weak. A friend of mine booked Econ to HK and upgraded to Premium for £200 - vastly cheaper than the listed price and real value.

[jetset lady]

In my business we typically book when we know we are going, which is normally just a few days beforehand, from London to points like Dubai or New York. This is the sort of business the mainstream carriers like to have. We always book in Y. The fares are typically twice or more what many of my seatmates who could book ahead have paid - maybe up to £1,500 for these sort of sectors. y class.

Of course the mainstream carriers love that sort of business when they can get it but there's no way it can be relied on. The majority of the cabin will be made up of travellers who have paid nowhere near that sort of price and they are the ones that the financial decisions, such as catering levels, have to be based upon.

No. On the shorter European sectors, doing a day-return out from London and back (once again at the highest fares of the day), leaving the house at 0445, queueing for ever at security, rushing into the cab from arrival airport to meeting, presenting all day, sorting out issues in the "lunch" break, rush back to airport, reverse experience, and home at 9.00 pm, those one-hour sectors in the plane are about the ONLY opportunity to get something. As you look around the cabin you see many others in the same situation. And yet the catering we got 10 years ago has been minimalised. Even when paying over £350 return London to Aberdeen.

When I said an aircraft is not a restaurant, I was actually referring to the fact that we don't have a larder full of ingredients and fancy ways of cooking them. As much as it may disappoint the marketing managers with all their pretty pictures, with the best will in the world it's very difficult to provide culinary magic with your average hormonal aircraft oven!

However, to take your point on it often being your only chance to eat, I'm very sorry but no airline should be held responsible for supplying your daily nutrition on a 1-2 hour domestic flight. If your schedule is such that you are unable to grab anything at all to eat during the day, then that is a problem with your schedule/company, not the airline. And once again, the majority of the people on board will not have paid £350. (I did try to find out how much the same trip would have cost 10 years ago but was unsuccessful. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it was pretty similar to today's prices.)

Saying all of that, as you have mentioned the high prices you have to pay due to last minute arrangements, out of interest I ran through a couple of price checks for LHR-ABZ day return, leaving in a couple of days time. The most expensive ticket I could find on BA was £233.79 return, departing on the first outbound flight and returning on the last inbound. That's not to say I'm doubting that you have had to pay £350 in the past as load factors will make a big difference but this is just a sample trip. Then to satisfy my curiosity, I tried the same trip for the train. £314 return. Unfortunately, while it leaves within a minute of the flight, you won't get to ABZ til 1448. On the plus side, you do get to work right up until 2200-ish but you might want to take your pyjamas as you won't get back to London until 1231 the next day.

However, I decided that was a tad unfair as obviously, a train to ABZ is in no way comparable to the flight times for the same journey, so I tried Manchester instead. By the time you take into account the joys of airport security and everything else that goes along with flying, the travelling times are much closer. Exactly the same dates and times.

BA - £142.10 return
Train - £302.00 return or £285 if you get two singles.

So......I assume from that, you get free drinks and food on the train?

In what world should flying be cheaper than the train?

[radeng]

I pay around £700 - £800 for D class to Nice on BA. The food is far worse than it used to be: at times, the CC are almost embarassed by what they have to serve. At least there's plenty of champagne, but I do get the impression that 98% of the time, the BA CC still have the 'To Fly To Serve' idea firmly ingrained. Like last Friday at Nice on BA345 - late in because of wind at Heathrow, lightning strike on the way in, delay with thunderstorm overhead preventing inspection, delay afterwards while the runway drained off the rainwater. 6.5 hours late, CC served the meal, opened the bar, kept the PAX as happy as could be. made sure LHR had arrangements for connecting PAX, and flight crew kept us well informed.

(The F/O gave me a cockpit tour and we discussed various things about avionics, but that's another matter)

Excellent performance by the crew - just a pity it was a crappy ex BMI A320, and those are not 'fit for purpose' for BA Club Europe.

[WHBM]

However, to take your point on it often being your only chance to eat, I'm very sorry but no airline should be held responsible for supplying your daily nutrition on a 1-2 hour domestic flight. If your schedule is such that you are unable to grab anything at all to eat during the day, then that is a problem with your schedule/company, not the airline. And once again, the majority of the people on board will not have paid £350. (I did try to find out how much the same trip would have cost 10 years ago but was unsuccessful. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it was pretty similar to today's prices.)
A quick look on ba.com at 5 days ahead, next Friday 2 Nov on BA1306 0840 LHR-ABZ (a bit late but whatever) returning on BA1319 at 1840 shows £336.79. Yes, the fares do rise and fall notably. Because my business handles response situations we quite often are booking people for the next day.

10 years ago (maybe more) we were actually doing such sectors as well, and I recall fares of around £200 for Edinburgh and about £240 for Aberdeen. It's no coincidence that the first route Easyjet ever did anywhere in Europe was London to Edinburgh. There's no free catering there either .... but they are only charging £122 for the same dates.

Regarding the "it's a problem with my schedule, not the airline", I've seen that style of comment previously here. I think it just shows a lack of understanding of the needs of the core customers. We can all say that.