Originally Posted by
Nick Art
I just flew GVA-MUC twice and RAK-GVA in the last week and I am happy to report back:
The first flight GVA-MUC was in the morning and they offered Birchermüsli on a tablett to all Business Pax. I asked for a carac (which I love) and they told me that it was sadly unavailable.
The RAK-GVA flight (full business class with 4 rows) today had one hot meal option that was served by a rather new but very well doing cabin crew member to each passenger individually: The table would be "set" by placing a small white cloff on the little table (sadly not covering it entirely) and the cuttlery given (although still wrappend in a plastic bag). You were then served the meal not on a tablet but only the plate with the food served to you directly. If this process would be a refined a little this could be potentially made to be a great improvement over the usual tablet meal serving we used to have as it gives more of a à la carte feeling. Sadly dessert as well as starters were only available to be chosen from the saveurs menu. The carac was available there as was everything else. The carac was served on a plate with a fork, but again, still in its carton packaging. It was, however, delicious.
Champagen is still available: A Duval Leroy, although I can't exactly recall which one specifically.
With a few small additional touches like the food and snacks being served unpackaged placed on a plate and the table set a little as it is in International First Class on Swiss I think this could be turned into an upgrade of the current Business Class service. Some additional choices fitting to be a starter or a dessert would round the whole experience perfectly.
The later GVA-MUC flight I was just on was also rather pleasant. We were only 5 pax in Business and they came around with a tablet (in which the usually serve the chocolate) showing all the different kinds of sandwhiches encouraging us to take one. I took the Club Sandwhich, which was decent, but not great. This time, however, I received no plate for it but was given it directly in the carton packaging. Eating it like that made me feel more like I was sitting in SAS Plus tbh...
If you have a nice and engaging crew that is willing to go one step further like serving the snacks on plates etc. (of which btw, they have dozens available in one of the drawers) maybe even without the packaging this could easily be classified as an overall service improvement. If not, however, it's a little worse and feels more like mass handling sadly.
To quote one of my earlier analysis when the concept was available on GVA flights:
I still think this could be an overall improvement at least for C pax, while I don't think the quality for the very short flights will ever be as good as that degustation menu we used to get on ZRH-GVA and ZRH-MUC, especially on a little longer flights where the BOB Menu is available in addition to the Business Food, it could be a great improvement. But a lot depends on how the presentation and service will be handled as mentioned in my above quote. I think a lot could be done there.
In Y, well, while the food won't be missed, the beverages certainly will be. I hope the LHG will reintroduce at least a minimal free beverage selection (Water, Orange Juice, Tea, Coffee and Coke maybe?), with everything else available on the BOB Menu. I really hope the quality of the BOB is as good as they say it will be and not overpriced for its quality as most sandwiches were in the GVA run. I'm still a little disappointed in that sandwich I got back then. At least I got it for free for sitting in C, but had I paid the exorbitant price for it I would have been really disappointed.
But if the quality is right, the prices not to steep, they actually solve the availability problems they had on GVA flights sometimes and at least a small assortment of beverages is again included for free after the pandemic, I think these changes aren't necessarily as bad as they might appear at first.