DME food service "enhancement"; no more hot meals
 

Just a warning for anyone considering flying to DME on the A321 service in World Traveller; the food service for this 4 hour flight with a 19:25 departure time (on the return) is now a small cold sandwich!

The crew were extremely apologetic and agreed that the offering is pathetic, but could only state that it was a BA decision, and it is now the standard offering for that flight. I could have flown EZY and bought a sandwich onboard and saved £££!

Does anyone know why they would do this, and can we expect other mid-haul routes to follow?

Surely this cannot be true, for a long short haul at that time?

What do those in the back get on the other A321 flights? I've only been in CW on these aircraft so don't know if a sandwich is standard for this aircraft type. As this would be a band 4 if the flight was still Eurofleet then a hot meal should be expected for journeys of this length. If the sandwich is standard on ex-bmi mid haul flights was this the case under bmi too or did they have hot food?

Hot food is available to purchase on EZY.

I heard about this from a CSD recently. I understand it's not a commercial decision, it's a limitaion with these aircraft - there aren't enough ovens/galley space to do hot meals for WT passengers.

Have these flights gone back to Eurofleet too, I believe.

DME is a basket case of a route now with 3 different aircraft, 3 different cabin configurations, 3 different CW seats, 1 flight with F, 2 flights with WT+, 3 flights with CW and WT, 1 flight with no hot meals in WT. Customers are going to be very confused about what the offering is on their flight. Absolutely no product consistency whatsoever.

Don't ET passengers get hot meals on Band 4? Maybe they don't normally have a full A321 operating Band 4, but for some reason but I find it a little surprising that they do not have enough ovens/galley space to do a hot mean in WT.

Then again, purely food-wise, I think I'd much rather be fed a packet of sandwiches in WT on a DME flight than my recent QF J (a 9-hour flight in the evening) where all they served was a very small portion of effectively plain noodles or a snack and a continental breakfast in the morning. What was annoying is that the cost of the flights were about £3,000 return (that's generally the cheapest fare, not some kind of fully flex J). You'd expect a little bit more for that kind of money.

Band 4 is a hot meal in ET (from LHR it's hot, from LGW it's an enhanced version of the band 3 meal). Remember the mid haul aircraft are ex-bmi so may have different catering equipment but I'd be surprised if they weren't capable of hot food.

You're spot on. After having benefited from the move from Shorthaul to Longhaul on this route, which I then did almost weekly for almost 2 years, I'm very pleased that it's now a rarity of a route for me... the service offering is confused and inconsistent,to say the least. Such a shame on a route that BA and Cameron were praising to the skies only 2 years or so ago.. (no pun intended.. ;) )

DME food service "enhancment"; no more hot meals
 

Well I call BS on the excuse given by the CSD. The A321 with bmi was more than capable of giving all customers a hot meal in Y and J.

I agree it is truly pathetic. BA seem to be progressively "testing" whether they can generalise the "LGW Band 4" concept to an increasing number of LHR Band 4 -- and now to a World Traveller -- flight(s) and this is really bad. I don't believe in the oven excuse (again, so many other airlines manage that it is not really credible), but even if it were, it would be perfectly possible to provide quality cold tray meals rather than sandwiches. I simply do not believe that a sandwich is an acceptable meal for a flight that long in the European context and I really think that the OP and other people affected should write to BA and complain.

The reason for this offering is, that there is not enough space to return cater hot meals ex LHR on the DME A321 flight.
When the flight went onto the 747/767 mix the flights were return catered and the contract with DME catering was terminated.
Now the A321 does the night flight and some daylight ones no new contract has been made, thets why the (poor) offering of the return catering of cold sandwiches in WT happens

Most Eurofleet Band 4s get catered at the outstation and so do the Midhaul flights, hence they can offer a hot meal in Traveller on those flights.

Just as the poster above said, DME is loaded ex LHR and the A321 doesn't have the space in the ovens to cope with it I Y.

It is a bit rubbish on the constancy brand but with a 3.30ish flight time not the end of the world. As long as the 747 stays on this route I am happy. :D

The frustrating thing is that 5 minutes talking to any of us that used to work on these aircraft, the catering team would be able to see how to fit a round trip catered hot meal on these aircraft. We used to do it day in day out at bmi, even loading a meal and snack on routes like FNA. Unfortunately every time there's some communication, we get back the message "the galleys are too small". Please keep feeding back your feelings on this service, you never know, something might change for the better!

And because of the longhaul Saturday night rule, an in-week return economy fare on this route costs over £1,000. Not to provide hot food for this kind of money is nothing short of scandalous...

It doesn't only sound frustrating, it sounds utterly absurd. If BA can't listen to its own staff when they have had that experience, it really begs the question of whether it is well-managed or not as a company. And as others have said, even if for whatever reason it doesn't want to bend its procedures to return cater, it should be no issue at all to get new catering at a large outstation which happens to be the main hub of one of its partner airlines. No excuse, this is simply very poor service and a lazy solution on the part of management.

It actually is worse, as the overnight is a mix as well. Tge 767 runs 6 nights and the 321 on tuesday night. I got it and the crew were actively making the point that due to having to carry both in and out there was no room for hot food and stating that they had made the point that a club world / world traveller service should not get a worse package than Euro Traveller / Club Europe and should not differ on one night a week as well as one flight a day. They confofmed this is a may-oct thing and reverts back to 2 x 767 and a 747 from October and were handing out complaints cards and asking everyone who made a comment or chatted to them to get on to BA and complain as its us they listen to and not crew.