Flyingfox

Just finished a one-way in business class "Club ANA" from NRT-LAX and noticed a reduction in quality of food and service in general. It seemed that too few FAs were working the flight, and it took almost 3 hours for them to finish the dinner service. Then the lights came on 2.5 hours before landing for them to serve the one-tray "breakfast" before arrival. So lights off and sleep lasted about 3 hours - not good. The Japanese meals looked seriously worse in quality and quantity.

According to them, they have "upgraded" their amuse bouche to exclude the breadsticks in the glass, having replaced them with a plastic bag of smoked nuts. Sounds and looks like cost cutting to me. They even raved about this change on the back cover of the menu as though smoked nuts were some major new discovery! The other two items on the plate were the size of postage stamps.

Service was very slow. You basically had to use the call button to get the FA's attention. Very strange for ANA.

I hope this does not last, but heads up for future travelers.

stargold

I did notice on a recent flight that F and C no longer shared a substantial proportion of the food between the two cabins, unlike before where you would only have an extra choice of each course in F for the western menu, and some more items on the Japanese menu.

Seems that they realised it was not economically viable to basically give you F meals in C... and even in F the Japanese meal was noticeably less excellent than the western menu.

flymetokix

Ahhhh, it looks like your service was "enhanced" (the term used on the UA forum). In the current industry environment I sure wouldn't be expecting any real upgrades any time soon.

mcg1000

But I love those bread sticks.

worldexpress

oh great. just what i needed to hear just before departure.

stargold

Probably because 50% of the weight is butter. They're really devillishly good.In reality, it's probably miles ahead of most of the competition still, especially the likes of UA. The high quality of the previous C offerings made me wonder about its long-term sustainability to be honest.

mcg1000

Can we not start a grassroots campaign for their reinstatement?

pueywei

UA is not competition.

Sad to hear of the change; I really loved their food in J.

Tak

I just came back from BKK.
BKK-NRT was OK for service( I did not eat anything during the flight).
The flight was not crowded at all so CA paid attention to all passengers.
Before the departure, one of CA counted the number of C class Passengers, and she found out one too many.
Since the flight was not crowded, both window side(two seats) has only one passenger each except couples.
However, there was one area where there are two gentlemen sit together side by side, one looks American and another looks Japanese.
Since there are a lot of open seats at back of C, the CA asked those passengers to show their tickets.

One looks like american stood right away, and moved back to economy class.
It seemed he knew he sit on the wrong class, and if it was somehow crowded, he might not be caught.

Anyway, the flight was not bad.

From NRT-HNL, full fight on C, and I sit on row 1.
CA looked busy and the service was not good at all.
They skipped to serve earplug/eyemask to us.
I though they would come back to offer us.
But no one came.
Wet towel which I used was sitting my arm rest for more than 1 hour.
Emply plastic bags after I opened Blanket/Headphone was in front magazine rack for entire flight.
My seat was 1B on B767 so it was easily seen by any CAs.
Usually, CAs would take them away from our seat and put them in trashbox.

I felt I was on UA flight.
(Still there are much difference between ANA and UA. UA crews are chatting each other when they are not servicing food/drink. ANA crews were just busy servicing other passengers.)

Flyingfox

Actually, I forgot to mention that amenity items were never offered during the flight. They usually at least go around with a basket of earplugs, masks, etc.
They were also not available in the display area that they once called a "bar".

Tak

I know there is no special amenity bag to offer all the passeners.
However, CA carrying amenity items did not look us, and passed by.
Therefore, I thought they would offer the items from the back of C class cabin.
But never come to us.
Maybe, CA thought she already offered to our row(Row1).
It is not a major complain at all.
I already had items from previous flight(BKK-NRT).
But I rememered CAs on ANA flight were much careful and paying attention to all passengers and our seats, not like UA flight.
When I return from toilet, usually I see my seat is cleaned up and branket has been fold nicely.
This might not a big issue but I did like the care by CAs.
On this flight, it never happened.
Indeed , I used to prefer the service of ANA to JAL's, but now both seem to be almost same.

bossCJ

Me likey breadsticks, me likey breadsticks!

Guava

ANA has been downgrading their food & services in Business class for some time now, even on Intra-Asia routes. Cash is king right now. When the price of Business class fares on competing *A carriers such as OZ is only about 1/3 of ANA First Class to/from USA and Asia, even I had to fly OZ Business in lieu of NH F, which I would normally prefer. Everybody is cutting their catering, it's not just ANA - OZ's catering in transpac Business class is almost inedible unless you are Korean.

Hopefully, when the economy turns around, things will be better then.

mcg1000

Please start a breadsticks thread. Preferably called "me likey breadsticks". Then we can all post about how much "we likey breadsticks".

fly2nrt

This is very disappointing! I have 4 upcoming long haul sectors on ANA.