Originally Posted by
cargueiro
Nodding to signify no might be part of the problem. In many cultures a nod means yes and a shake of the head means no.
I think it's more an EK thing - they get so many more complaints about missing meals that the service standard is to wake people up for them unless they specifically have the DND sticker visible.
As for the specific points raised by the OP, although I agree with him that the waking sleeping pax up for meals is probably one of the most irritating aspects of EK's service if you don't know to put the DND sticker on - and that having told the FA you don't want food should be sufficient for them to note down DND on their menu sheet, I do think his expectations might be a bit high, namely:
1,3 - An hour to landing is about 30 minutes of flight service time to go, as it's 40 minutes to top of descent and 10 min of clearance/checks before that. I agree with the crew that 30 minutes is not sufficient for a proper meal service, especially as carts etc. have been put away
2 - I don't think other crew doing nothing at that particular time would have a bearing on whether a full meal can be provided given the timings involved (anyone who's worked in hospitality can tell you that adding more people to a service just gets in the way)
4 - It's not dine on demand on EK J, even within reason. Even in F they stop hot meal services 90 minutes before landing. I think that is an over-expectation, especially with an hour before landing and that the easy to prepare food has likely already been locked away in carts for landing.
5 - I'm not sure how being angry at being touched to be woken for food when not wanting it then means the service recovery means you should be served food, given it's not a dine on demand service. I think that is just frustration at not being able to sleep through the previous flights bleeding through onto inaccurate expectations of what EK J offers, rather than a service failing (being woken roughly notwithstanding).
Although I think the Purser failed by arguing with you about meal service - there are more tactful ways to go about things and he should know that shaking someone to wake them up is not going to go down well, he really was doing you a special favor in having a meal service so close to landing, imho.