headingwest

Personally I think you've just about hit the nail on the head. When BoB was announced I'm pretty sure Alex Cruz was hoping that other legacy airlines would use that as an excuse to dump their complimentary food and drinks too. That would have put BA on a pretty level playing field with the other legacy carriers in their battle against the low-cost airlines. But it never materialised and BoB has just shown passengers that these days BA is all about penny-pinching to make more money. Nothing to do with a 'premium' experience anymore.

I've found it quite amusing (almost comical) over the last few months that many on this forum seem to be actively seeking out flights from third-party airlines or franchises on BA codes rather than BA mainline (BA CityFlyer, Sun-Air, Jota Aviation, Titan etc) just to receive a reasonable level of hospitality while they fly. And we saw during the strikes last year how happy passengers were when they got their soulless economy BA flights replaced by Qatar's complimentary service. So to say that passengers aren't really interested in food and drinks when they fly (the old 'it's only a bus in the sky' argument that got pushed here so often) is really a load of rubbish.

What BA are doing with this trial is testing the water, but it's pretty obvious, for anyone with an ounce of common sense, that it will improve customer perception of the brand. I don't know why they are dilly-dallying, BA know damn well that they will eventually have to reintroduce complimentary food and drinks for all if they want to rebuild their reputation.