Rumour: BA to drop catering on routes <3 hours

[What_does_this_button_do?]

Rumour has it that BA are about to stop catering flights on less than 3 hours and give people vouchers to buy whatever they want at the airport since the reaction of the GG dispute has raised relatively few complaints.

Without catering means planes are lighter and thus saving fuel.

My complaint is that every eatery in Heathrow has jacked their prices up to cash in on this but it does mean the people that are late for their flight won't have time to get something to eat.

[Wannabe Flyboy]

I rolled my eyes on reading the title and laughed out loud about the fuel comment!

Let me deconstruct your post. ;)

If you give, for example, 110 economy passengesr £5 and 15 business passengers (on an A319) £10 you're paying out £700 per flight.
It does not cost that much to cater through GG. A tabloid threw some figures around during the strike but it was half that figure at least. So let's assume you're paying an extra £350 a flight.
All Day Deli boxes are hardly heavy and if you remember that passengers are going to bring on their own food which might be heavier I can't see how you're going to save on weight and over £350s worth of fuel!

Edit: if shorthaul BA Y went low-cost that would surprise me, but that is a different matter.

[TheOddOne]

If I'm on a flight of <3 hours I don't WANT a trolley buzzing up & down the aisle. Just have the safety staff (flight attendants) sit in their seats ready to save my life if the worst happens. Frankly, I just carry a bottle of water on the plane with me, which I aim to consume during the flight. When they come round with the gash bag, in it goes. With no food service, the cabin is nice & clean for the next load. No cleaning company required - helps to speed the turnaround. There's more to it than just the mass of the food.

I think that bar & catering typically weighs about 500kgs.

I once did a 'fam' flight to Funchal. Direct there, but had to tech stop on the way back at Lisbon. While we were there, the FO calculated that if we'd left the bar behind on Madeira, we'd have got back to Gatwick direct!

Cheers,
TheOddOne

[newswatcher]

Is 3 hours significant? What % of flights are under/over this? Has some learned person pontificated that more than 3 hours without F&D might cause health problems?

When I am flying down from EDI to LHR after a days' work, a nice G&T is most acceptable. Unfortunately, such a treat is absent from the current Deli bag!

[manintheback]

Hang on - is this dropping the food only or the bar too?

Food I dont give a damn about - but my Gordons!

[What_does_this_button_do?]

Wannabe Flyboy deconstruct all you want but when you do make sure you take into account:

Weight saved
Time saved (no waiting for catering truck to arrive)
Time saved (white van dispatched when there is a shortfall on the truck)
Staff reduction on aircraft
Risk reduction of incidents (number of vehicles docking with aircraft)
Risk reduction of incidents (hot food spillage onto passengers)
Number of complaints reduced as people getting own food means no one complaining about it, if they do complain the complaint is directed at whoever they bought the food from.
Contract maintenance fees saved (the team that manages the contract can be ceased).
Number of trollies required falls significantly

and the list goes on...


...and this includes the bar service I was told. Only tea and coffee. Water will probably me the blister pack type and not bottles.

Did you know the All day Deli boxes are prepared in Rotterdam and trucked over frozen? Must be the reason they are so delicious! (sic)

[apaddyinuk]

Lets just wait and see before we all claim to be experts....huh?

[10secondsurvey]

You know, I thought they might try this. I noticed how long it was taking to get the 'dispute' resolved, and thought they may use it as a bit of spin, like " we are going to have no inflight catering etc.. from now on, as during the recent dispute , very few of our customers were bothered, blah blah...our fares will be even better value...blah blah.


Well I'm one of their customers and I'm bothered, I just don't see the point in telling BA repeatedly, as its due to an industrial dispute. Sorry, lets get past this thing about shorthaul food. If you are travelling on three connecting flights, it could be five or more hours travelling - it is nice to get a drink and some food on the plane, and if it adds £3.50 to my ticket, it's not like I'm going to notice, fares vary by much more on a daily basis. The notion that no food on board means cheap fares is utter tosh - it just means higher profits. I flew with Iberia recently no catering at all, but it wasn't like I noticed how cheap it was compared to BA.

So, anyone who stands up and says no food on aircraft is a good idea and makes fares cheaper, is either daft, or has a vested interest in the relevant airline.


Why not make people pay to use the toilet on board, or charge for the use of air, or a seat back. In fact why don't we just turn flying into the most god-awful soul destroying experience possible, and wonder when people complain.

[Avman]

No complimentary catering is one thing, but no catering on board at all is another thing all together. Whilst you heroes don't need to be fed or watered, I do! The other day I was glad to have the option of purchasing a (quite delicious actually) turkey baguette on board the LCC flight I was flying on. I'd had no time to eat beforehand or to purchase anything decent at the airport.

[spiney]

Totally absurd concept... running around a possibly unfamiliar Terrminal on a one-hour connection with a couple of kids and a handful of vouchers queuing for some sandwiches and drinks.?... get real.. fix the problem.. otherwise the customers will vote with their feet...

[moku]

Newswatcher,

Ah you should try the BACX EDI-LCY flights then. Did that last night, had a hot meal and a G &T, or two ;)

Moku.

[newswatcher]

Yeah, but moku, at what cost? When I did my booking, return flights from/to LCY were over 200GBP, whilst LHR flights were under 100GBP. Scotairways ex-LCY even more! Company insists I use cheapest fare possible. I also live in darkest Hampshire, so LCY not altogether easy to reach!

[flyingbee]

One of the things I really like about BA short-haul is the free catering. This week flying home I was rather late for my flight due to queues dropping off hire car and massively long check-in queue (no self service). Spent an hour in those two queues.

Having left my hotel shortly after breakfast, spent 2 hours driving to the airport, and then all the queuing I was definately ready for some lunch on my lunchtime flight.

Since I was late I did not have time to go round the airport looking for a take-away sandwich, and when on board it is so nice to simply be handed food and drink instead of having to find some money from my bag and then find out that all the sandwiches are sold out but I can have a cr@ppy snack box instead.

I don't need feeding on every short-haul flight I do, but some flights I really want some food.

flyingbee

[GwynM]

if they give out vouchers at check in, how do you get them with web check-in from home.

Piles of sarnies at the gate (like they do at ABZ at the moment) seems a good way to go, but definitely bring back the G&Ts

[pax britanica]

It might work at the shopping mall with runways that LHR has become but what are you going to buy at CDG which has virtually no fast food as our French friends are not exactly fans of this kind of sustinance or at Frankfurt where again snack type catering is incredibly limited for a big airport

I think BA are smart enough to realise that they have a decent product on SH at present -some times of day excepted when the All day deli is just a kit cat and an absorbent imitation biscuit,

What BA need to focus on is
1 The absurd extras-taxes surcharges atc incurred at LHR-often more than the fare
2 Promoting their own low fares- I have recently got LHR-CDG for £32 and LHR-Bordeaux for £40 return these compare very well with Easy and FR but it amazes me BA just do not publicise them properly
PB

[WHBM]

There are many of us "business" tarvellers who have our fares paid for by the company, whatever they might be. However a gin-and-tonic, if charged for, comes out of our own pockets so can be seen as a pleasant benefit of flying BA. On BMI or Easyjet these things often seem overpriced for what they are, too.

When it comes to food on board, again there are many of us, the highest-fare paying ones, who get up early and rush Heathrow, fly up to Scotland, day of meetings, straight back to the airport and then drive home from Heathrow. Often the only chance in this to get breakfast and dinner is in the plane. And it's really welcome and we all appreciate it. It's a real positive to make us choose BA.

In a rational world, post the GG fiasco and BMI charging for things on board, BA should go all out to publicise short-haul food and drink as a BA exclusive now, something that shows they understand/appreciate their solid baseload of business customers. It's now their point of differentiation.

If no food meant higher long-term profits for BA I could understand it. But in reality it then means they are no different to Easyjet, so why not transfer over to them and then my revenue is lost to them altogether. I've already done this for Ireland, where Aer Lingus have gone down to Ryanair standards except at a higher fare.

[P.Pilcher]

Oh dear - after a long multi sector day with poor wx, having to hold above final destination for half an hour or so keeping fingers crossed and then just sneaking in on minima, landed, parked, passengers off, tech log on knee: "Sandra, a large scotch and ice on the flight deck - now!"
"Yes Captain"
"Oh and a beer for Nigel"

No more, I assume.

P.P.

[etrang]

Why not make people pay to use the toilet on board, or charge for the use of air, or a seat back.

10second, please don't give them ideas.

[bmibaby.com]

When I flew with American Airlines just before 9/11, so things may have changed since, they had a novel way of cutting bulky equipment onboard their flights whilst still providing a decent food service. Upon arrival at the podium at the gate to hand over your boarding card to the gate agent, there was a chilled cart, almost like a hotdog vender's cart, by the door to the jetway, where you picked up a "Bistro Bag" then made your way onboard the aircraft.

The Bistro Bag consisted of a sandwich, bag of crisps, a piece of fruit & one of those little cartons of water. Upon take-off the crew then came round taking drink orders, and spent much more time interacting with passengers because there were no carts to set up. Presumably also by giving people a bag to put their trash back into, this would also speed up turnaround time. Therefore why not do the same thing with the All Day Deli bags?

[Carnage Matey!]

"Sandra, a large scotch and ice on the flight deck - now!"
"Yes Captain"
"Oh and a beer for Nigel"

No more, I assume.

Long gone years ago. Can't even have a drink in the privacy of the crew bus any more.
:(

[WHBM]

Oh come on all of us ! BA is meant to be providing a quality service to the business community to distinguish itself from Easyjet. In all classes.

Yes we can all eat out of McDonalds bags when we want, and throw everything in the bin on the way out. But I just wonder why restaurants manage to continue in business despite such "alternatives".

Next proposal will be to strip out all the seats and we can eat our in-flight food from bowls on the floor like the dog.

[zed3]

As I posted on another thread a while ago BA is seen as a national carrier and should have full service in a one class cabin with different fares depending upon when you book and which conditions you choose . One should be talking 'standards' here . Surely there's a way to do this rather than down market the whole product .