subject2load

Hmm.......

Hardly ideal to be told this even when seated in the very first row of ET.

I think for any ET travellers who are a) departing from UK airports, and b) concerned about availability /choice of food by the time the BoB trolley reaches their particular row, then the best solution remains to buy at the airport. The options will invariably be better within the terminal anyway and it avoids the pot-luck element and/or risk of missing out once onboard.

For inbound sectors it can be a little more complicated. Many European airports will offer similar or perhaps superior catering facilities than, say, LHR. But that won't always be the case and some more advanced planning might be necessary, such as getting something in town before heading for the airport.

Andriyko

Full economy cabins may also mean that the airline offers to passengers something that they want, and what they want may be the cheapest price. According to the IATA Global passenger survey for 2015, the Top 3 factors influencing ticket purchase are price (43%), schedule and convenient flight time (21%), and FFPs (13%). Even if we assume that catering comes 4th, it would still mean that less than 13% of passengers would make a decision based on what's offered onboard or would pay more to fly with a carrier that offers food and drinks. Regarding the perception of a brand, that many here believe is now tarnished, in-flight service is also not in the Top 3 factors that influence the perception of the brand. Nor is eating and drinking is in Top 3 favourite activities on shorthail (for last year). If I were running an airline I would not concentrate on something that is not or very little appreciated by consumers and does not attract more business. And catering is not the only issue where what passengers want and what FTers think they want diverges significantly. When you breakdown the results by age then you will see where things are headed. There are many things where BA is behind the times in terms of what passengers want from an airline, but catering is not of them.

Flexible preferences

Seems like a very informed post ^

Especially interesting is your introduction of the correlation with age, and how the younger generations may be seeing things differently (perhaps in many areas, including politics).

FlyerTalker688786

It also depends on two major factors:
1, Whether the survey is multiple choice; or
2, What is the composition of surveyed passengers.

The two flaws about these survey are:
1, If the survey is based on single choice, you will have a bias towards price, understandably. However, when you give three choices among 10, brand recognition would be on par with price in most surveys;
2, The composition of surveyed passengers are extremely important too. If the surveyed passengers are mainly from where the LCC is booming, passenger tends to have a bias towards price and do not care about the food and beverage on board as none of the carriers they take would concern such choice. However, if the passengers base have a heavy concentration in Frankfurt or London where aviation market is leaning more towards legacy carriers, you would have a different answer.

Thus the best survey to trust is among BA passengers surveyed by third party. In the same logic about the IATA survey, airline should not chase the cheapest price as more than 57% does not buy ticket based on cheapest price...SO why operate BA like a cheap airline to attract only 43% of passengers while ignore the 57%?

ahmetdouas

And since when is BA the cheapest option? LOL

BA6948

you must have missed those Ł29 fares to Rome.

A friend of mine just got back from Chania. He was shocked by BA's service. Fight was delayed and no food except the amazing "Percy Pig". He booked BA because he perceived it as a great brand. He said it was the last time flying BA. Next time it is going to be easyJet (as BA is a low cost anyway) or Aegean (cause it is a great way to start your Greek vacation).

Flexible preferences

Shame he couldn't have posted here himself about it. Then we could have had a first hand account...perhaps you may encourage him to post about his experience of BoB in the experiences thread?

Andriyko

They were multiple choices surveys. Catering is just not at the top of the list of the deciding factors (both to purchase a ticket and for brand recognition). If 10% buy based on the on-board service than I don't see a reason for any airline to make a lot of effort to chase that market either - these 10% will have to fly with some airline anyway.

It is hard to argue against numbers, but it does not surprise me that people refuse to believe the surveys if the results do not align with their views.

FlyerTalker688786

No, it is not people who refused to believe, the reality is that you are confused with 'numbers' and 'surveys'.

Numbers are hard evidence from day to day operation. Survey is biased either by survey designer or survey participants.

Survey does not produce 'numbers' but 'opinions [within the surveyed group]'. How you get the survey result (please do not use the word of numbers here) depends on how and where you distribute the survey. Whereas numbers will no lie from day to day operation.

And that is why BA never believed in surveys, although they always use excuse of 'based on feedback'.

Andriyko

So, when people say in surveys that they do not buy on in-flight service and BA's numbers confirm that even though free in-flight catering was removed the bookings were not affected, it is all not right somehow anyway? If you believe that in-flight catering matters you will try to come up with the reasons for why the surveys were flawed and in-flight catering did not appear among passengers' priorities. But even though you may question the surveys you can't argue against passenger numbers, can you? I trust these surveys and they are supported by passenger numbers and passengers behavior, so even though I may have a different opinion about certain things, I accept the reality.

FlyerTalker688786

You see, you still did not understand what I was trying to explain to you.

Survey is flawed because it is restricted to:
1, The design of survey; and
2, The opinion of people surveyed; and
3, The sample size and location.

These are basics you would learn from any UK university during your dissertation preparation. I feel that I should not repeat all those principles here again and again.

And if you do not understand the flaws of survey, just look at the poll forecast from CNN and FOX before the US president election. Good luck to you to believe in any surveys. Before I leave this topic completely, answer following questions yourself:

1, When travelling, what is the most important criteria for you to choose airlines?

2, When travel from London and New York, what is the most important criteria for you to make a purchase on airline ticket?

3, When travel from London to Alicante, what airline would you travel on and why?

4, Think of following scenarios, which airline would you mostly like to travel on?
A, Airline that offers you a wide range delicious premier banded food and beverage options that you can order with a small fee.
B, Airline that stuffs you with inedible awful plane food.
C, Airline that does provide average food but impose a heavy charge for drinks.
D, Airline that gives you gourmet meal but its ticket is more expensive.

These are just four fun questions for you to answer. But the answer is not important. The first three questions I want to show you why survey is unreliable without define the purchase condition. And the last question, I already embedded bias in the answers to try to get the best outcome I want to have. If you could see why and how, you can make a great survey writer. If not, I can only say I have tried my best.

1010101

All of that may be correct but in think you are missing the point. If BA removes all other factors and competes solely on price, they are fighting a losing battle. As a legacy carrier they will never have a cost base as low as the Ryanairs of the world. If the industry takes a battering and airlines have to start heavily discounting/incentivising, the true LCCs will always be able to price BA out of the market.

BA6948

He's not an aviation geek. He's not interested in these forums. But it is interesting to know the views of non FT passengers (and that's why I look at twitter and airlinequality.com).

corporate-wage-slave

There is a new menu for BOB, with a few items added and deleted. More information in the Information thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...-services.html

However this thread is the right place for any opinions about it.

bafan

The menu is still really uninspired, isn't it, when you look at all the options offered on the high street by Pret, Eat and Itsu et al...?