eyechip

Upon boarding BA to LCY from Geneva yesterday the following interesting dialogue took place.

"Mr. -----, I need to inform you that because you changed your flight to this there is no meal for you on board."

"Umm, but this is my original booking, I don't understand."

"Oh, sorry, it's because you booked this ticket so close to the flight."

"Umm, I booked this flight a week ago."

"Well, there is no meal for you. We are one short and you were selected to not get one."

"Why would you not tell me this upon check-in or in the lounge so I could have properly eaten as you have no left me with no food since I woke early this morning until I land at 3:00PM."

"I don't know, contact customer service"

That's the basic and completely bizarre synopsis. As an emerald One World and an Exec Plat with American I was pretty amazed at this as I am sure given the full flight there were Op Upgrades, etc (which I was not). Sure enough, the flight attendant did not serve me though tried but everyone wanted their meal. It was quite hilarious to watch everyone around me eating while I was passed over. Again, stuff happens and if I was informed at check-in I had plenty of time to eat in the terminal or the lounge and I would have just shrugged it off.

Upon landing at LCY I approached the counter to inform them of this. They were not apologetic, looked at my record for 10 minutes as they "needed to speak to someone about it." I finally after 20 minutes just left as I was starving, it was now 3:30PM and I was wasting time as they were trying to find someone to do what, I have no idea.

This was easily one of the most bizarre service blunders I have ever witnessed in my flying. I still have no idea why I was selected or why I was not properly told at check-in. None of it makes any sense and is an indication of continued service declines at BA.

sxc

Assume Club Europe?

Doc Savage

So they don't even carry enough meals to have one for each passenger?

I can understand not having enough for everyone's first choice, but this sounds almost comical.

eyechip

Yes, Club Europe.

Worcester

And they could not even be bothered to bring some snacks up from the back?

eyechip

Not sure anything was served in back given the short flight. But nothing was offered.

orbitmic

This is quite pathetic indeed. I'd say write and complain but to be truthful, they won't care. Telling at the airport upon arrival was never going to get you anywhere though.

And yes Lcy's catering choices are odd - on large full cabins they often do not have enough meals for everyone so clearly under cater, and on smaller cabins they often run out of choice by row 2.

EuropeToAsia

Are we sure that Mr. Cruz isn't paid more by FR/U2/*A/SkyTeam than he is paid by IAG?

corporate-wage-slave

I've had this a few times, usually when I really have changed flights or booked within 48 hours (I've had this on Lufthansa and KLM too, for that matter) and returning via an outstation. If leaving LCY/LGW/LHR then even very late bookings can be handled, you occasionally see a tray or two handed to the front galley staff on top of the main trolley. Usually the lack of a meal is more sensitively handled however, and invariably I do get a meal anyway, not everyone wants to eat on short flights. The food is all loaded in LCY, and on the return back to LCY, if they are a meal short then someone gets selected based on ticket issue date. Because the ticket issue also triggers the meal allocation this logically fits in with this process.

So what could have happened here? If the crew didn't know then I can only speculate. The most likely reason is that on the initial departure from LCY there was (say) a 30 meal allocation, with 15 kept for the return flight. On the LCY-GVA service,however, somehow 16 passengers ended up in CE and every single one of them ate (rare in itself in my view). There could have been a late upgrade, someone sneaking into CE unnoticed, a damaged meal not handed out (e.g.crew dropping the meal or it falling out of the trolley); but the most usual reason is that the very last minute purchaser on LCY-GVA, and the cabin crew, who don't get the FLY data, weren't told, and the TRM didn't handled the matter properly / had bigger fish to fry. They were therefore fine for LCY-GVA but realised they had run out on the return.

If you did something else to be reticketed (change to a connection?) then it would have been rough justice to have selected you, but it probably was the case that even on a week old booking you could have been the last ticketed person in CE. If they are a meal short, then I'm afraid you are the one to be affected. I totally agree (oops!) that you should have been told earlier, there is café right by the GVA gate to get provisions.

Status, incidentally, is no protection, my CIV and status doesn't protect me. They do not underload catering at LCY given the numbers, or anywhere else, indeed vast amounts of CE food gets thrown away to this very day, so you were particularly unlucky that they were a meal short and everyone was hungry. In addition to meals refused, people not turning up for their flights is far more often than last minute bookings, though perhaps not at out stations. If it's any comfort, unless you are doing hundreds of BA flights a year, all booked late, you're unlikely to ever have this problem again.

If you complain about it, you will get probably about 4,000 Avios, which is actually generous for the meal contents, though if you are only on AA this may not be a brilliant idea. If this is the case, you may want to mention on the complaint that you are AA, they may offer an e-voucher instead.

smokie36

Its pathetic service really.

Truly appalling for a business class product.

corporate-wage-slave

Additional thought: Was this an AA 001 booking, perhaps a codeshare? And did you have a problem with the reservation before or with sectors after GVA-LCY?

And I only wish they did do soup in CE, don't know why they don't try that: cheap as chips, cheaper actually, and tastes great when airborne.

V10

As it's return catered someone clearly would have known before passengers rock up at the gate that there was going to be an issue with catering.

A customer-focused organisation would have, as the OP suggested, advised affected passengers earlier so that they could have made alternative arrangements, or even provided a voucher to buy something at the airport. There are, apparently, very few incidences of this anyway, so it shouldn't even have taken more than a few seconds of someone's time to do this.

They didn't, and it's hard to avoid reaching the conclusion that this is not an organisation that really respects its paying customers.

crazy8534

At least you were able to enjoy the additional legroom and extra space with a free seat beside you on this LCY CE flight, not to mention the lounge access you wouldn't otherwise have had. Oh wait...

TBH I'd be pushing pretty hard for a refund of the difference between a CE and ET ticket.

wmaciej

Interesting writeup, c-w-s, however this is poor management. Consider booking at short notice (not unusual for business travellers), with only J class available, hence the ticket being on the more pricy side of the spectrum. Frankly, as a customer, I just don't care what operational difficulties there are. Ticket costing say 500+ GBP and no meal on board because I booked late?

corporate-wage-slave

And furthermore, though we all know about return catering and its limitations, how many other people do? Generally this wouldn't be a problem, not everyone eats and as I say far more food gets binned than runs short.

Not sure, given a return catering operation, how it could be avoided for bookings done a few hours before departure. For example the first GVA is a night stop, the catering would be loaded in LCY at 18:00 hrs the night before. So anyone booking or changing flights the night before travel, how would that be handled? I guess they could get a notification on their App and/or the lounge staff would advise them to grab a few things.