Originally Posted by
obamtl
The cynic in me suspects BA doesn't want customers to order specific meals because there are passengers on long-haul J that wouldn't pay £130 for a seat reservation if they didn't need to sit in row 5 or 6 to guarantee their preferred meal choice. If 10% of passengers bother to follow a complaint up, paying £150 is good value if they generate more in seat reservations that they would otherwise have lost.
Let's wait and see if the much publicised new app actually translates to improved service via meal selection pre-boarding, or BA sticks with "AI" to predict what people might want.
That's interesting. If AI is used then I don't believe it's performing well. On my flight that I mentioned further up, which I complained about, the routing was LHR-JFK in J in December. There were three mains: A turkey dish for the holiday season, lamb and vegetarian. Considering the USA destination, during December, I would think that the AI would predict that the turkey dish, being a traditional choice for that time of year and considering the likely American passengers, would be the most popular option. Frankly, I'm not an AI expert, but even I could have figured that out. But from what I have read here, it appears this is another cost reduction move although I would think there would be less wastage if pax were offered the choice to pre-order.