Originally Posted by
bocastephen
I have an even better suggestion...
1. Go to seat 1A and take the meal order
2. Working from 1B though the last seat, ask each passenger for their choice, letting customers know when a selection has run out
3. Serve meals
Voila..done.
I think what you describe is what CO was doing prior to their decisions to change it (except that some FAs would work back to front and others would work front to back). Clearly the Airline is having trouble keeping its high value customers (as reflected by their substandard financial performance) and they are offering this (and the extended GPUs) as an incentive for customers to stay and/or come back.
P.S. I don't think these two items alone will make much of a dent in customer retention issues (although I could see the GPU item having much more of an impact than this one).