Originally Posted by
jday
Yeah CC have told me that before on a lot of flights on WT+ return. I wonder if it's just only the 788/789 though. I've certainly had it on some return flights in WT+ but I haven't worked out if the aircraft is at fault or maybe some outstations have it chilled somewhere. It is a bit poor BA haven't found a way of chilling some bottles. Of all true modern technology on the aircraft and they haven't got a fridge.
Maybe I should bring a bottle from the lounge and serve the cabin - although I wouldn't want to be filmed and shamed on these forums for doing such an act!
It seems that it's as simple as the sparkling wine is loaded in London in a box not a bar so is warm for the return. Champagne is loaded into a refrigerated bar. BA don't want to pay more duty than they have to (to serve booze on the ground they have to pay duty) and the 1 duty paid champagne drawer is full of champagne so there's no space to put the sparkling wine.
Some stations have worked out a local solution whilst others haven't (I believe US is a sticking point as they have particularly fussy customs - note crew have to count stock in the bar for the paperwork to the US!) and some crew find a way to chill the sparkling wine but others can't or don't. Presumably once a few bottles of champagne have been opened for outbound PDB there is space in the PDB bar drawer for sparkling wine but then this depends on inbound crew realising it is there and logistics of getting it to WTP given crew have a short time from boarding to pax arriving to do security and equipment checks, work out why no special meals have been loaded or why all the First entrees have all been loaded in the WT galley and so on...this is all conjecture but the WT+ sparkling wine is probably quite low down the priorities list!