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Old Jul 13, 2020, 3:07 am
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brunos
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Hong Kong, France
Programs: FB , BA Gold
Posts: 15,495
Disappointed with BA32 F

I can now walk again, so I will share my recent experience in F.
I had two revenue tickets flying HKG-LHR-NCE in First on 1 July with my wife. We are both BAEC Gold. My LHR-NCE flight on 2July was cancelled so I had to wait over 5 hours in LHR. I am extremely disappointed with BA.

The food/wine service in F was terrible I ordered vegetarian she got the non-veggie. Both were awful. I attach pictures of the veggie box. Tiny containers: some minuscule cut veggies, some cheese, some cheese and ham (!!!), a mini piece of cake, a praline and a piece of (bad) bread. The hot dish was some pasta in gluey and tasteless gravy with some cut mushroom. Everything was of unimaginative, made of products of lowest quality and below what one often gets in Y, even on 2 hours CX regional flights. Wine was two squeezy plastic quarters of Chile cabernet or Malbec, absolutely undrinkable. Hardly Y quality. After diner, scotch was a split of Johnny Walker RED. The non-veggie offering was not much better.

We had only one set of tiny plastic cutlery to be reused for each container, even dessert. Hence , we had to wipe them each time.

I understand that there is some health risk, but the F&B quality was dismal and the crew has as much interaction with us as usual. Worse was the absence of menu card. I know about some potential risk if menu cards are reused, but the FA bending a couple of feet next to you and shouting to explain the menu in an non-understandable south-Asian accent is worse even if wearing mask (sorry, English is not my first language).

The excuse of health risk is laughable as there was about as much interaction with the crew as normal, and other airlines competing on the route (QR, CX, AF) offer much, much better quality of F&B. I have travelled in J on QR and CX since the covid outbreak and was astonished by the ultra-cheap BA F offering. Actually, the breakfast in the J flight LHR-NCE was better, even though the flight was 100% full.





The worse for my body was our experience at LHR. We headed to CCR as advertised on our ticket, but it was closed. We had to wait over 5 hours in an uncomfortable gate chair. I have a bad back. After all this travel, I had to lay in bed for 10 days because of sciatic pain. At the very least, BA should have given F pax access to comfy lounge chairs in CCR or F gallery terrace, and some vouchers at Pret A Manger as other airlines do. This is unacceptable. Covid had been around for months

I consider that BA completely let down F and Gold pax for reasons linked to cost-cutting. We had already requalified for Gold by extensive travel during covid, but I certainly will not fly BA for some time. And the Gold card is of little use.

Just an unrelated detail to illustrate how BA treats health risks lightly. When going to the bathroom, I heard a lot of laughing coming from the galley with the curtain half open. There were seven FAs congregating and chatting loudly. Despite the proximity (all standing up within a foot of each other and not eating), not a single one was wearing a mask.

QR current F&B service has been widely discussed in the BA forum. As another point of comparison, see current J service on AF:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/32525702-post143.html

Last edited by brunos; Jul 13, 2020 at 7:21 am
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