BA Buy on Board
 

Any one on Prune experience the new BA Buy on Board (BoB) experience yet-quite a lot of negativity on some other websites. The part of it that worried me most was that even water has to be paid for unless its 'Tap' water. I have always been v wary of drinking tap water on a plane knowing what can go on inside relatively small water tanks when the tap is fed from there other than free flowing mains

FWIW the water bowsers should have sterilised mains water, tablets are added by the operative, if they can be asked. I have also seen the water tanks after removal and they have sludge at the bottom. I agree, on board 'Tap' water would not be my first choice!

Two questions.

1. How much for a beer? An orange LCC charges £4 for a 330ml (£6.88 a pint equivalent).
2. Do they charge the same on intra-EU as on ex-EU where goods are tax and duty exempt?

Drinks menu | British Airways

1) £4 for a 330ml beer. Same as easyJet.
2) Only one price is listed as far as I can see.

Which airlines do charge a different price for intra or ex EU flights out of interest?

The crews all drink the same tap water. When you consider that the can't eat the same meals but can all drink from the same water it suggests to me that the risk of anything unpleasant making you get sick is fairly small.

I'm curious about how many crew members drink the tap water.... I suspect not many.

Well, every crew member who has a tea or coffee will and any passenger who has a hot drink will too. Water services during ground delays too. If there was any risk (drinking it hot or cold) then I very much doubt it would be offered to anyone given today's litigious society and if there was a health and safety risk, crew would be forbidden from consuming it.

There might be a reason why some carriers cater extra bottled water for their crews...

My airline does carry bottled water for crew. We get a set amount of water bottles with any extra being either passenger water from the bar or potable water. Not all do however. We still get teas and coffees made with potable water. Airlines who use coffee brewers will also use potable water.

I've been drinking it for the best part of a decade and I'm still here.

"Air Asia to KL from BKK ,I had a coffee which was not particulary hot and about 30 mins later I had to dash for the loo,lucky I was in the back row!This continued well after I was on the ground .Conclusion was it was the water as I had only had my normal breakfast (and nothing else)before take off.

On the BA flight yesterday LHR-MAN, the crew made an announcement that they are "excited" about the new buy on board service, but due to being unable to take forms of payment they will not be providing any of services on board, but you can have a glass of tap water if you wanted to, they further say "we have passed this onto to our management, who sends their sincere apologies."

In reality BA have become such a shabby airline, even their own staff looked so embarrassed, you cannot differentiate BA from a low cost, the ticket buy the way cost over £250, not worth it and I wish there was flights with different airlines to LHR from the north.

I'm sure the crew won't be quite so embarrassed when their commission slips get delivered.

I was under the impression that the majority of airlines provide bottled water for their crews?

I personally wouldn't drink the potable water unless I had to, I regularly see the water quality test reports and you'd be surprised the amount of 'fails' seen on these reports. Often from UK airports :cool:

They do indeed. However there's no way to heat the bottled water in many cabin setups. Therefore when it comes to hot drinks, we the crew are all drinking potable water.

I'd thought that if they were going cashless, they'd at least have the manual backups for card payments. It's basically carbon paper imprints of the cards. It's old school, but it works. I don't think it's acceptable for a long flight to say 'our management send their apologies, and we have cups of free tap water available'.

I do find it amusing. Once upon a time BA crew and pax would look down on the likes of easyJet and their passengers. Fast forward to 2017, and they're easyJet Heathrow. Nothing more.

Potable water for tea/coffee is boiled/filtered though?

And hot meals are nuked to death. We still can't eat the same meal. Some of the drinks we get served are barely warm, nevertheless mind hot. If there was any risk in potable water then I'm sure they would restrict crews in consuming it. They don't usually restrict passengers from consuming it neither. Airlines are very cautious as to where they pick up water in order to minimise risk. Many a time during ground delays our crews have distributed cups of tap water to an entire cabin. I've never heard of anyone getting sick from it.

I understand that potable water cannot be uplifted from certain locations for obvious reasons, but I've seen a lot of worrying reports regarding water bowsers and the quality of their tanks in the UK.

I stand to be corrected here, but I believe Ryanair potable water isn't for consumption?

Ryanair have redefined the meaning of many previously understood terms, so why should "potable" be immune ? :O

Previous thread of relevance:

http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf...ement-not.html

I do realise that most airlines would take some care over potable water and of course if it isnt actually boiled it should be close to 100 C for tea or coffee. Most UK tap water isn tvery nice to taste anyway though and sticking in a tank ona plabne isnt going to make it taste nicer.

I understand why BA are moving to BoB but extending it to bottled water is a step too far, It makes them look cheap and nasty and is completely at odds with their 'premium image' they like to portray

At 8,000 feet the boiling temperature of water is 91.6C. And it won't stay that hot for long.

I personally would never drink potable water, unless it's a cup of tea. We get provided with bottled water, however after seeing pictures of the inside of aircraft water tanks I keep the tea down to a minimum. Quite a lot of countries including quite a lot of European countries, we are prohibited, in BA, to upload potable water.

The BoB sounds like its going quite well, with rumours from crews that it's being sold out. It's a shame it has happened, but the public want cheap flights and they are price sensitive. It's all about price on short haul. Expedia and other travel sites often list flights on the headline price, and as a result BA don't get listed anywhere near the top, because they used to have everything included. A £7 price difference meant Jo Public went for LCC. The reality is that several free G&Ts later, they'd forgotten that they've saved a considerable amount of money on their way to Malaga.

BA reduced the offering to compete to the extent is was ridiculous and hardly anyone ate it anyway. If the public select the airline on price, you might as well compete on price.

Indeed no sponsor. Across 25 years people around the globe have proved that they will change carrier for a Tenner. Perhaps they do also consider the distance from the airport, parking charges there etcetera, we do not know. But the global short haul market is changed beyond recognition and the long haul is not looking so good either.

Going back to one of the original questions, can anyone tell us of an airline who charge different prices for the BOB products depending on wether or not the flight is intra or extra EU?

Two observations.

1. There is no way that BA, on its own volition, would provide bottled water to the crew based on its concern that the tank water might be bad. In the event that a PAX gets sick and sues BA, imagine the liability (not to say the PR disaster) that would attach to this likely discovered BA concern.
2. The crew contracts that I have seen for several U.S. airlines require that the airline provide the crew with bottled water as a contractual condition, not due to any concern on the part of the airline as to crew health. As a result, there is no admission by the airline that the tank water represents any health concern.

Therefore, while possibly disgusting, the tank water is likely quite safe.

But can BA guarantee all the water is uploaded where it is safe to do so-I am not sure London has the cleanest water either. But how do the crew know how much water has been used and how much is left for the return trip.

I agree giving the crew bottled water but not pax might be problematic but then the flight deck get clean air and the pax get mostly recirculated /oil fume contaminated air. So overall i think bottled water is a good idea and no reason why its not limited to one per pax .

As to price sensitivity just flying from LHR not GW or STN makes a big difference so why not move half the flights and the price conscious destinations to LGW and save real money that way

The crew can check water quantities of water on the A320s. It could be topped up downroute subject to it being authorised if ever there is a need.

Many an airline have been flying for years without providing complimentary bottled water. I see no reason why BA would have a problem. If anyone is too precious to drink tap water, then bring your own or bring your credit card.

Gatwick is already more leisure centric than Heathrow. BA are simply responding to the market. I'm sure they have done their research and shock horror, they've realised people don't select flights based on a 'free' G&T and a packet of birdseed.

Out of interest do people who live in London all just drink bottles of Evian?

I see nobody has named an airline who charge different onboard prices based on routes so one can assume that no airline charges reduced prices on exEU flights.

HM - Just because they don't have a dual price list (domestic/EU and international), doesn't mean they shouldn't.

Years ago when I started flying many airlines had a domestic price and an international price for on board alcohol sales. So it has been done, and can very easily can be done.

Not only are they, now including BA, stealing the VAT and duty from their non-EU passengers they are stealing commission from their cabin crew. That is, unless they pay different commission amounts on ex-EU flights. Commission on these flights should be based on gross price, rather than net price. While only a few pennies on a pound it does add up.

That may be so but no airline does this. I think it's important to point out this fact wether it be BA or easyJet or anybody else for that matter.

Going back to the BA BoB it's disappointing that despite all other airlines in the group (except OpenSkies) having a BoB service for many years, that BA's implementation hasn't quite worked out. They should be experts really. There's no excuse for it.

If the intention was for BA to increase revenue through on-board sales, it may take them a while. I've yet to see a two crew cart make it to more than about a third of the Eurotraveller cabins on the 320's I've flown on this month. The transaction process seems to be extraordinarily cumbersome and on my last trip they didn't seem to have much selection of sandwiches (just beef in fact).

And yes, a complimentary G&T and packet of nuts or lemon biscuits was usually welcome; I haven't noticed the base ticket price being any less this month than it was last month.

I did notice base ticket prices having reduced on one domestic sector I use regularly - it's down from £41 to £37 over the next few weeks. Just back from my third BA sector since the launch of BOB - first two were absolutely fine, this evening's effort was dreadful.

The crew (Eurofleet, before anyone asks) were going out of their way to talk down the whole thing. One of their payment machines wasn't working so they had one for the entire cabin - we got a gushing PA after take-off about how it was early days, they were still finding their feet and would try to serve everyone if they could, but if you didn't like it, you really should take to BA.com and let British Airways know what you think. Talk about trying to incite complaints.

I then overheard one crew member - coming back to put a transaction through the machine for a passenger further up the cabin which totted up to £26.40 - saying "it's too much, it's too much - they can't spend like this" to his colleague. My memory went back to that episode of "Are You Being Served" where the staff at Grace Brothers were trying to deliberately put anyone off buying. Disgraceful.

Returning to LHR on a 319 yesterday. Passenger asked in the galley after seatbelts off for a glass of water and was given a thorough explanation about the BoB service and how water in a bottle cost £1.80 or 225 Avios (I think he may have been feeling a bit unwell looking at him). Cart pushed to the curtain then heard that they had apparently run out of food stock within about 10 mins although no official mention of this. I was near the back and certainly no one near me was offered any refreshment. Crew were getting off and were met by what appeared to be a 22 year old manager in a hi-vis who was vocally debriefed walking from the aircraft at T5B to the transit platform (including carrying on the discussion in the elevator with me, a passenger). Apparently the transaction devices are not working as planned - one of the crew explained to the 'manager' how 'they all knew how to operate an i-pad so why was this so different' and how he felt it was 'unacceptable to run out of food so quickly'. Bit unprofessional to voice your concerns in front of your customers I think but then when seated near the real galley, you sometimes hear the choicest of conversations when they're strapped into the jumpseats.

I miss the tea/coffee biscuits etc but I'm not going to pay £2.30 for a hot drink, £4.00 for a Heineken or a minimum of £1 for a packet of crisps when they were complimentary last month and the ticket price has not changed (on the routes I use).

It's exceptionally bad if they're not giving out glasses of water. easyJet do.

There's no excuse for running out of products. They have a full rear galley and additional galley stowage at the front where they can carry ambient products. I can forgive them for running out of fresh options but not ambient given the vast amounts of storage space they have in comparison to easyJet.

It's also strange how they complain about the sales system and how it's so slow. If it's so slow then how do they manage to run out of food so quickly? easyJet have half the storage space, more passengers, short turns and often very short flights on four sector days. They don't even have a full size oven yet easyJet crews manage it somehow. Why can't BA?

It sounds like militant crew who think BoB is below them who are doing everything they can to ensure that it doesn't work.

HearthyMeatballs. Everyone is trying their best, but the whole set up needs more thought.
Not enough food is being loaded. 3 ploughman sandwhiches for a 321 going to Cyrpus. Really now? Yet 10 bacon sandwiches on an AMS where they have no time to cook them anyway. Makes complete sense.
Easyjet have more passengers but they take cash which actually is pretty quick to transact. BA have these ipads that quite simply do not work as quickly as planned. Took a friend of mine 20 minutes to pay on a 50 minute flight. So on the short flights not everyone gets served, on the long flights they run out anyway. Sure some staff may want it to fail, but they are not going to risk their jobs over it, get real.
On the subject of water, it is deemed safe to drink, and at many overseas airports the water is not uplifted as it doesn't meet accepted standards. This can lead to aircraft running out of water on certain routes. So the last thing you want to start doing is handing it out to passengers to drink. Furthermore, on certain aircraft it is not possible to despense cold water from the galley, only hot water for making drinks.

You don't offer tap water over the PA but if someone makes the effort of coming to the galley and asking you do not start bleating on about how you have to pay and how hard life's is. You say 'certain sir, would you like ice' and 'is there anything else I can get for you'.

I can sympathise with regards to the fresh options. It seems nobody is immune to 30 hots for a domestic run and 3 fresh options for a medium haul holiday flight!

I think once BA has its data it will work things our much better in future but there will always be anomolies. Personally I think it would be better to just get rid and only serve ambient products such as snack packs. Less wastage and you'll never sell out as you can store an awful lot of them and don't have to worry about a short shelf life.

Just do away with it all togther on short haul- tell them to buy sandwhiches before boarding

Junk the ghastly carts and save on weight & fuel

so disappointing
 

I'm very disappointed with BA. Back in the late 90's I used to fly regularly from LHR to EDI and ABZ (and back), and also from about 2006 to 2012 I flew twice a year LHR to ABZ (and back). On the morning flights you got a "proper" hot breakfast with bacon, egg, sausage, tomato etc etc.

Last November I had to fly to Germany and back on business, and my employer booked with BA. This was pre- B-o-B from M&S.
On the early morning flight out, no breakfast as such, just one small mis-shapen croissant that had been pre-injected with some sort of margarine substitute, and on the return flight, evening-meal time but the only food served was a packed of crisps, so a very late microwave curry dinner for me when I got home. Premium price, premium service but lousy food. What is the world coming to? The cabin crew looked very embarrased when I queried the lack of proper food.

It's not just grim in the back. Took the early flight to Miami from Heathrow on New Year's Eve. Checkin was chaotic and it took an intervention by a bunch of pax with a passing BA rep to actually getthe queue moving after 45 minutes.
We were served breakfast - but most of the options were "unavailable" by the time I was served. Lunch was skipped and afternoon tea came out - dry finger sandwiches and not much else. The snacking options didn't survive long; halfway into the flight there were no chocolate, crisps, nuts or fruit selections. Just a bag of sugar coated popcorn.
If I'd paid a proper fare, I would have been pretty tee'd off, but for a reward flight I only expect the flat bed.........except BA's offering isn't actually flat. How anyone pays several grand for the service is beyond me.
No wonder Virgin are always jam packed!

Very very wrong conclusion.

The internal farcebook on BA's in house intranet system is full of complaints by crew TO management.
This is definitely not crew being un-cooperative. Its just very poor planning.

BA are (again) trying to be all things to all people and failing - their shorthaul offerings resembles a proto LCA whereas they brand themsleves as ful-service long haul airline.

Passengers get confused and it badly affects the brand

I have a lot of sympathy for the cabin crews - they're having to deal with the fall-out from management decisions that haven't been completely thought through

... a large percentage of their business is connecting traffic via Heathrow. How do the explain food and drinks on the longhaul, but BoB for the connecting flight? It's going to put them further down the list.

yeah - its like connecting between QANTAS & JetStar - you're never quite sure how it works but it works badly so you just go somewhere else