Nothing new. Some time ago another post victorian hero tried a similar loco bs out of the UK. Funnily enough he was also titled "Sir', it was Freddie Laker. He failed.
Any flight above 6 hours without food and drink is foolish. You will certainly find the punters buying into it, stinginess is not exclusive to airline owners. And they will stubbornly not buy into anything additional that could spoil their cheap deal. But on long trips we will therefore probably experience even more unwell or unruly fools, due to low blood sugar or dehydration. More intermediate landings, or more emergency feeding and hydrating of pax will inevitably lead to higher workload for crew and finally more cost for the stupid company. Some pax will quickly learn this trick on how to get free food and drink and our beloved beancounters will want the poor cc to make them pay for it etc. etc.
Nothing is thought through and carefully trialled at EK. When some manager lets go any fart, it is simply implemented and when it backfires, the frontline has to bear the brunt. Reversals never happen, because the holy management can't err, can't lose face.