Originally Posted by
EchoVictor
Yesterday, they were out of Krug and the previous 14 champagnes were shortened to 5 or 6 on the official list. All LVMH and boring except for the Krug and Ruinart BdB. I did spot an empty magnum of Krug at the bar, so in theory yesterday there was some that day at some point earlier.
Food was all meh. The tomato soup tasted like eating a can of pasta sauce. The Caesar salad was overdressed. The sandwiches in the tea set were a tad stale.
Service was chaotic. When I asked for the wifi password for my laptop I was brought a QR code and the server didn’t want to give me the wifi password. Everyone said it was their first day.
PS. At the Greenwich lounge where I did a driveby, there were dozens of bottles of Piper and it looked like the normal old Flagship lounge but less crowded. Thumbs up. The Soho lounge was beautiful and much better space with light and zen feel, but they only had Roederer Estate american sparkling, a lesser wine than the Piper in the Greenwich. Bartender said she wasn’t sure when they would have Champagne again or what the selection would be. No menu. Chaos.
Roederer Estate is delicious, and one of the better made sparkling wine from the US. To put it below Piper? Just depends on what type of bubbly you are into.
Originally Posted by
Ned1968
I just don't understand why this is so difficult for AA/BA to remedy
They both ran decent quality first class lounges at JFK prior to this, with AA doing it within a few hundred meters of the new lounge. Flagship Dining and CCR both offered a decent menu, a reasonable bar, and reasonable service levels
Someone was in charge of creating the Chelsea Room. Someone is responsible for its operation. In both cases this will be someone who does this for a living and must have experience i.e. a professional
And yet two weeks after opening this sh*tshow is offering burgers and fish and chips and whatever random champagne they have lying around. And they don't even know who is eligible to enter the lounge (clue: you have one job to do.....)
Is no-one accountable? Why bother with a bespoke chandelier if you don't care about the catering or staffing levels? Why can't someone order a decent supply of food and drink so that it doesn't run out every day? If you order 100 burgers then order 100 rolls.
Did they forget everything they knew about operating an airport lounge and installed people who have never done it before so they can learn on the job, using a first class lounge at a key hub as their classroom?
Rule number one - don't make it worse than what you're replacing. Epic fail
Seriously - how is this possible?
It sounds like the Sodexho staff seriously dropped the ball, or lack of a proper kitchen or beverage manager to keep all the food and drinks in stock. Clearly they underestimated demand (which assuming that both BA and AA provided historical data), and did not have sufficient supply or people to run the operations properly. I mean, they know exactly how many eligible fliers for the day, average percentage of fliers who will use the lounge, add a few percentage for guests and looky-loo factor of a new lounge, and there's your estimated demand to drive the purchasing decisions.
At the same time, once the bad purchasing decision was made, if they are working with one of the big food suppliers (e.g., Sysco or US Food), they can't do just-in-time deliveries, not to mention specific requirements for deliveries to the airport. Champagne purchases have to go through the distributor, which may have limited supply due to December in NYC. All this dominos into the crap show that is week 1 and 2.
Hopefully they are (almost) back on track getting into week 3 and beyond.