DELLAS

The pasta does indeed look a bit sorry for itself.

G-BPED

That does indeed look a very small piece of chicken. Sorry I didn't take a picture but I had 2 pieces of chicken and much more pasta which like the chicken was quite moist.

The desert is indeed a joke. 3 spoonfulls and its gone!

csutter

Tasty as it was - it would have been even tastier if there had been more of it

ringingup

Definitely! I was really tempted to cheekily ask for another one!

welshbobby

Hi....firstly Im new to the forum so please excuse me if this has already been asked.
I am due to fly LGW - LCA in July. This will be my first experience of BA Eurotraveller service. Previous flights have been with an orange loco.
I was very much looking forward to the reputable BA inflight service but I understand from reading through this post that even though its band 4 I will only be offered a measly snack!
Is this correct and can someone confirm the inflight service for this length/destination flight?

Littlegirl

Band 4 flights out of LGW receive the box pictured in post 242 in this thread.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk welshbobby, and a particularly warm welcome to the British Airways board. It's great to see new people join us, and so I very much you can continue to participate actively in this forum. Welcome on board and I hope you have a good time on your forthcoming flight to Cyprus.

welshbobby

Thats very disappointing and was expecting more. Why such a poor tray for such a long flight AND why is it different from LHR? The website is very misleading then and gives expectations of much better! Im already disappointed and even haven't flown yet!

Littlegirl

I don't know the reason but you may get the chance to upgrade to CE nearer your departure which is a full hot meal. Sometimes they offer reasonable upgrades via BA.com or at checkin.

I do hope you have a really nice flight whatever happens.

Skipcool3

I don't think it is too bad at lunch time, but as a main evening meal, it is a joke..... Particularly as it can actually take 5 hrs from getting on to actually getting off.

It does seem however that LHR B4 leisure flights are being similarly catered.
I would suggest it is because BA feel they don't have to offer anything better... The charter operators are now pre book a meal or buy on board, and you know the easyjet product.
Sad thing is, probably the best product is now Monarch, pre paying for 34" seat pitch and decent catering if you order it before hand. This means Monarch only have to load the catering for those that have pre paid.
GB airways were able to offer hot catering on both the 737-400 and A320 /A321 when they operated a lot of these routes as a BA franchise, but apparently there isn't enough space on the identical BA aircraft...

There is one advantage to flying BA over Easyjet, and that is as long as they have not put a former BMI aircraft on the run, you get decent leg room in the front part of the plane.

welshbobby

Flew LHR - LCA with Cyprus Airways last year- full tray with hot meal both directions.
Dont tell me I can expect also one drink per person on flight too with bar service?!

Littlegirl

I think that the offerings in ET on BA flights will ultimately change.

I have no knowledge of what it will change to but it would not surprise me if the model changed to something similar to either Monarch or Easyjet.

This just seems the way shorthaul travel seems to be heading, low prices but add ons if you want them.

Littlegirl

No, I don't think I have ever heard of drinks being restricted to one, so you don't need to worry about that.

Skipcool3

Cyprus Airways are a shadow of what they once were though, massively in debt and are not using the A330s anymore. .....
BA are in profit..... Littlegirl is helpful and as she points out, it is possible to secure a very low fare. You will see from the other thread that there has been some restriction on Gatwick flights around drinks....

orbitmic

Gosh I really hope not. Ultimately, IMHO, if this is the way BA goes, it will pay the price in terms of lucrative connecting traffic just the way LX did when they decided to switch to BOB. It was an unmitigated disaster and the airline had to reverse its decision. I see three reasons why I believe it would be a mistake:

(1) competition for long haul. Much of the benefits made by BA are due to long haul passengers including connecting ones, in all classes. There, BA is competing with the likes of AF, LH, KL, etc. LH has improved its food offerings on mainline flights in recent years (admittedly, they chose to effectively abandon flights outside of their FRA and MUC hubs and leave those to semi-low-cost Germanwings), and AF and KL are also maintaining a food and drinks service on short and medium haul flights (and AF has restored a full bar after switching to soft drinks/beer/wine for a while. Incidentally, it has also improved Y food offerings on long haul with now two hot meals on most flights). So personally, I think that the BOB model is only the main point of comparison with low cost airlines but not really with other European majors and that the impact in terms of risking to lose badly needed long haul connecting traffic (including in Y and W) would probably largely negate the benefits of saving a relatively low expense of food and drink for BA.

(2) To cut a long story short, I think that Easyjet is better at doing Easyjet than BA would be. There are a number of structural costs that airlines like BA, AF, and LH have to bear, which airlines like U2, FR, and DY simply don't. It means that if such a 'major' airline tries to offer the same service as a low cost competitor, it effectively does it with a higher cost basis and thus can't fully compete on price. Indeed, while BA has become far more competitive on price notably from LGW in recent years, it is still a bit more expensive than U2 and it means that it needs people to "want" to pay a bit more to get something that they would not get from a low cost airline. If BA negates this quality advantage by trying to emulate worse competitors, people won't see a reason to pay more to fly BA (which they do) and will instead go for the lowest price for a comparable service, ie the competitor

(3) To me, one of the worst mistakes made by major airlines in particular in the current climate is to still believe in an overly compartimentalised passenger base - like the business people who always fly J or F on the one hand and the leisure travellers who always fly Y or W, which would mean that you could cut down some of the benefits of the Y and W travellers without any effect on your premium traffic. I simply do not believe that this analysis is commercially accurate. Increasingly some business travellers who do indeed travel in J or even F on long haul flights also frequently travel in Y particularly on short and medium haul. If you lose their "love" in short and medium haul Y, you thus take the risk of them also punishing you with their expensive long haul J travel, especially if competition is getting more structured (think the VS-DL JV, and AF, KL, LH, IB, AZ all having gone fully flat, including AF installing essentially the same new J as the new AA J and a very significantly improved F). Personally, I would say that things should never be taken for granted in the aviation industry, and that while BA has done a great job at mobilising a very strong custom base in recent years, a few unpopular decisions could cost serious losses of passengers who would then become very hard to regain.