Originally Posted by
jmc1K
What I genuinely don't understand is that BA must spend a fair amount on booze. LPGS is a high end Champagne, similar in price to Dom & Krug. The CCR wines retail around £25-30 per bottle, (which means they would be around £100 in a restaurant....that's a reasonable quality for a first class lounge giveaway,) and the in the Flounge and onboard in J they serve Taittinger, which is a decent mid-range Champers.
So, why do they make the investment in high-end booze, but offer food that honestly loses to a sack of Burger King every time?
I'm a dedicated alcoholic, and I like the booze BA offer, but the food makes the whole experience seem cheap, both in the lounges and onboard.
It is odd as you say and I agree with the sentiment exactly as you state it.
In terms of trade-off (although I do not believe it necessary to make them) I would prefer to see them save the price of half a bottle of LPGS which I easily drink or two or a few glasses of the Johny Walker and spend it on the food and service. But if you look at the actual issues, they actually do not cost anything to put right.
The reason why I used the word "ashamed" in my original post was purposeful in that we were chatting to a delightful American couple in the lounge who were on holiday and they were saying how remarkable the food in London had improved generally in the last ten years or so and rightly or wrongly people often think in places like a national carrier's home based F lounge that it might be presumed to symbolise with some pride what visitors might expect as being top-end cusine of the host country ie all the best that that country has to offer. They were puzzled by the poor food and service in the lounge.
As it happens it reminded me of how postively we felt towards Qantas after
using the SYD lounge on our visits. It was better than a lot of what we'd eaten in Sydney. Over time the Sydney F lounge became a part of our trips that we positively looked forward to. In London we appear to have the reverse experience for visitors.
If you think of that route as being LHR>SIN>SYD and back then neither BA LHR or BA SIN stacks up well in comparison to QF SYD F lounge. Even at SIN almost all recommend the QF lounge rather than BA. Why on this particular route as some others BA doesn't see this as a weakness worthy of addressing ... who knows. It doesn't strike me that cooking the same ingredients properly and serving it on warm plates and having competent staff would actually cost a penny more, it would just take managers actually managing.
