Originally Posted by
LeisureFirst
I don't think the conclusion holds because there are far more differences between the services than the food. LCY-JFK has just two services a day with timings which may not suit, it takes quite a bit longer unless you're departing from Canary Wharf or thereabouts, some people are (rightly or wrongly) put off by the stop in Shannon or the small plane, and what you say only applies in one direction as on the home run you want a meal you get the same pigswill from the JFK CW dining as everyone else and no Arrivals Lounge for breakfast.
Furthermore, people were talking about paying an extra £20 or £30 for decent food, not an extra £200 (each way). If I want to upgrade my food the easiest and most cost-effective way is to use miles to move to the front.
I didn't see the comparison as ideal just that it existed, the increased costs have always appeared highly variable to me. You get a full meal on the return sector to LCY if you so choose and indeed it was rather nice on my last trip. There is no sleeper service per se on the JFK-LCY flights.
I would generally not consider the food in F to be a significant upgrade form that in J and in fact often the food in J has been preferable to some of the nasty options I have experienced in F. I certainly wouldn't burn the miles only for the food because all my experience leads me to believe I would be disappointed and it would have been better to have bought a Plane Food picnic at around £15 a head.
Surely though the problem is that like the issues of comparability of the LCY service you highlight, food is only one part of the overall proposition. For many the fact they can fly direct from a reasonably local airport on a flat bed and enjoy broadly decent lounges, with reasonable IFE and English speaking crew trumps poor quality food. BA's traffic stats seem to have risen in inverse proportion to the perception of food quality.
BA cannot really offer better food for a fee in J or F because it undercuts the whole J or F proposition where the pitch no longer resembles the reality. None of this is a great state of affairs and perhaps the surveys will change things but as a cynic I suspect they will be used to justify further "enhancements". BA could "respond to customer needs" arising from uneaten food by removing some of the food which would be uneaten
