What a day to be alive!

Good riddance to you BA. I'm so happy I moved away from the UK and now don't need to deal with your crap and pathetic offering.

What next? Making CCR accessible on international tix only, or perhaps increasing the minimum number of flights on BA metal for requalification.

I feel sorry for the staff.Though I suspect all the good ones will have left, or be in the process of leaving anyway.

Wait and see on Club Europe - "Passengers in Club Europe – the airline’s short-haul business class service – will continue to enjoy a complimentary menu, which is being improved and revamped."

What sort of "improvement" is on the way for CE?

Yep, I also spotted and commented on that one too! :D

Even though it was expected, it makes me sad...

What?

And throw away a good 255 days of M&S profiteering???? :eek:

:D:D:D

In that case, you should have been allowed to select from the leftovers of the J cabin....:D

What I find most astonishing is that this is being applied to Band 4 flights. 4 hours, maybe more, from boarding to gate to ATH and RAK on what can be fairly high cost flights and BA seriously expects the only free offering to be potable water from the galley? :o

On the ATH route, contrast this with what A3 currently serves, in Y - for free - in this post. I'm sure there are other airlines that offer a similar level of sustenance to various destinations. With the improved lounge offering for Star Alliance at LHR, where the UA lounge is as good as GF albeit a little less convenient for all gates, I'd expect my short and medium haul travel on BA to decrease in favour of Star airlines. Grief, even SK gives free tea, coffee and (mineral) water in Y. It says something when BA has managed to fall behind them ...

If I were a competing airline out of LON and offering free food and drink, I'd be shouting it from the rooftops right now.

Pretty unlikely they actually believe it, they have the choice between being honest "we can't compete and/or make any money unless we do this", or trying to find some spurious justification as to why it's supposedly a good thing - aka polishing the doggy doo.

Those of us who are experienced travellers and/or have half a brain might prefer the honesty, but for many corporate organisations the mentality is "admit no fault or weakness". That usually leads to this kind of justification being trotted out, however nonsensical.

At least they've made the decision easier when booking flights within Europe now. No point even considering spending extra for BA anymore.

I'm a little surprised how this has just made a mental switch flick, but yeah. I enjoy BA for service, lounges, and convenience of LHR. When travelling to obscure places I've often chosen to use BA + ground transport at the far end, rather than flying to a closer airport (which would typically need more ground transportation at the UK end instead to get to LGW/STN/BRS). Now, not much point in that, might as well use FR/U2/etc and go direct.

I doubt that will get very far. In most cases the food offering is upgraded. We will have to pay for it, sure, but it is an upgrade in choice certainly, and possibly quality, certainly over a bag of crisp or whatever.

15,000 people have viewed this and hundreds commented. If everyone took this time to go and message BA on Social Media it would have more negative impact than one thread on FT.

I think the whole move is very disappointing and a disaster for overall loads and profit.

The current ET offering is horrible - an unhealthy bun and minor sandwich. It used to by two quite tasty small wraps with same manufacturer as Tesco, and before that a triangular sandwich that was quite acceptable. So with the current on board offer I may have accepted a BoB offering for food as a genuine improvement.


However charging for water, tea and coffee just stinks and most other airlines (* alliance members) offer some or all alcohol free.

There is now zero incentive for me to fly BA in Europe unless I can buy a cheap CE ticket. It is a bad airport to transit at (extra security), and is often not the most convenient option being based in Scandinavia. There are better connections offered by LH group and AF/KL if I do not have an AY or SK option. And all of these options are better in terms of F&B for top status members!Haha I can only imagine!

If you look at it rationally (which I'm sure a lot of good folks on this forum will) it really shouldn't be such a big deal. But just for the experience, on a very basic level, there is a huge difference in the feeling between being given something and having to pay for something.

In terms of the travel experience on the day, it really is one of the most noticeable differences between an LCC and a full service one. I think that's why this feels like a bigger deal than it really is.

Not for domestic brekkie :(