The actual levels of "fresh" food is something I will actually stick up for Easyjet about. It is incredibly difficult to predict how much you will sell. So for example, MAN-AGP may sell out of fresh item (sandwiches etc) on one day where as on the same service the day after, there maybe a large amount of wastage. What I will say is that this is monitored and crew feed back info on this after each and every duty. Consequently, if there is a trend emerging then supplies will be increased or decreased as the case may be.
Delays quite often mean increased sales and unfortunately it is too late to increase stock. On long flights where this occurs (and it is rare for all stock to go on the outbound) then we try to send an ACARS so that pax are informed. Some more hard faced observers would say that it is not the airlines responsibility to ensure all are fed and watered and that passengers eating habits before a flight cannot be blamed on the carrier. Harsh but I sometimes see their point.
The oven is an issue.....apparently when the airbus was ordered they were only used for crew food and subsequent deliveries have kept the same utility. However, the oven can hold 9/10 pieces of food so I am not sure why they were only cooking 4.....if indeed they were.
I operated MAN-MUC on Friday 1st October. Weekend MUC in the last few weeks have been extremely busy. The outbound that day was probably the craziest flight I have ever operated. Very busy and with a load of 140, 109 were males. It was manic for both food and drink and to put this into perspective, takings were double than the set average for that duty.
In actual fact, MUC-MAN inflight service was fairly quiet (despite an healthy load factor) and so it wasn't a particularly huge problem. But lets face it, whilst not ideal, the sector is fairly short and people often travel for much longer on a train with little to eat. The longer sectors are, in the main, much more reliable and this is partly thanks to the A320's being recatered each time it arrives back in base as opposed to the A319's which are catered twice a day.
Galley space isn't a problem believe it or not although the A320's would be more crew friendly with a full galley but that would probably reduce seat pitch slightly to accommodate the extra toilet. Both the A319's/A320's seat pitch is "reasonable" until about row 25 onwards on the 320.
As for the service getting busier....it really does depend what route you find yourself on. TFS for example, especially from a Northern base like MAN, can be very busy with people in the holiday mood. The holiday makers (bless em) still love the whole flying experience and that includes eating onboard. Even those who bring their own food don't often eat when they are hungry but shortly after take off. Probably the way they used to back in the good old days. lol. However, on a MAN-CPH for instance there may only be a select few actually eating and a few won't even buy a drink,
One major drawback regarding the actual drink selection at Easyjet IMO is the fact that there is just too much choice. For example, 2 types of lemonade.....it just isn't needed.
It's not an easy task trying to get the figures right on over 1100 sectors each day and anyone who has a formula to do so would become a rich person. That is why I cut Easyjet some slack. There are one or two issues that could be worked on which would help such as the ones I have mentioned but otherwise it's a difficult task.