Tobias-UK

I notice no difference in the apparent happiness of the crew with either airline.

DYKWIA

You'd have been disappointed when they told you they don't take cash. Card only on BA

Concerto

Yes, I know you are right about this and any straightforward analysis, or discussion, will prove that there is no correlation between the introduction of BoB and the beginning of a downward spiral at those carriers. It just felt like it at the time, that's all.

That's probably because it appears to be the way forward for most carriers, at least on the short haul network, even if we don't like it. I just don't think that absurdly low fares can come with all the service perks like we had in the 90s, when I started regularly flying and ticket prices were a looot higher. I dreaded this sort of service on long haul and still do, although I'm not entirely sure that Norwegian has pulled the rabbit completely out of the hat.

This is news to me, I thought easyJet had perfected their art long ago. I've never been on a flight where they've run out of produce and uptake has usually been good, unlike apparently on AB, BA or IB. But I haven't made hundreds of U2 flights, just a few dozen, and I've never made any really long distance U2 flights: longest was GVA-EDI and vv. One thing I like is that you can prepay your BoB and get a 20% voucher. So, if a voucher costs £5 you will pay £4 for it. And, of course, you can pay any balance in cash (another major mistake of BA, IMO)

ANstar

Well the last few flights Ive done the crew have been pretty miserable. On my BKK flight the crew were moaning to each other the whole service in club and on my last AMS-LHR the crew clearly would of wanted to be any where other than on the aircraft.. in contrast my EZY flights from LGW they seemed pretty happy.

rossmacd

U2 are not perfect but what I do find U2 good at is announcing at the very beginning of the flight that if they are running low on certain items - especially sandwiches. Quite frequently the last 1 or 2 rotations of the day will see stocks depleted of the more popular items.

Tobias-UK

EZY running out of certain items is not unusual, it typically starts on the late afternoon flights - although I recently had no bacon butty on an AMS morning flight from LPL.

I suspect they have introduced the pre-order option in an attempt to avoid running short on certain flights. The 20% discount for pre-buying is good. Given that they have been BoB from the very beginning it's taken them a long time (over 20 years) to introduce a pre-order option.

Tobias-UK

I don't doubt you will get an occasional crew that are less then stellar, but I'm not sure you can blame that on BoB.

bisonrav

EZY are a well drilled organisation who are working to a well established business model. I always try to sit in 1C when I fly EZY, and the energy of the teams even on the last flight of the day is extremely impressive. I love to watch them organising and accounting for the trolley contents, almost up to the point of arrival sometimes.


BA I think are in a process of change, which always creates some problems. If you've had one sort of job and it changes into another, you will not necessarily adjust immediately, or at the same speed as your colleagues, and that creates tensions and a bit of backbiting here and there.


Essentially BoB is a good idea if the quality is good - I'm not all that bothered about getting 5 minutes on a 1 hour flight to drink a mini coke bottle and eat a pack of pretzels just to have a bit of complimentary service. Cashless payments aren't a bad idea either, this is the way the world is moving and not having to find change in two currencies can't help but streamline the process.


Long haul, I would LOVE to be able to pre-book food. I would happily pay for this if it arrives promptly and you get everything together - I had one WT+ flight where the pre-order was doled out and then I had to wait for the drinks trolley about 25 minutes later to get a glass of wine.


I think what it comes down to in my mind is good service, and that's what seems to be slightly drifting away with BA - the net result of the reductions is that you feel unvalued as a customer. I remember Virgin really shaking things up in the 1990s in Y in long haul with little gestures - an ice cream mid flight for example - and being delighted by that. It cost them peanuts. I don't blame the cabin crew for this, but the context they're working in. Save me money and give me a good experience and I'll buy your product. Remove things from a mediocre experience and I'll start looking elsewhere.

miamiflyer8

Can't say I disagree.

Orange.Man

It's got nothing to do with the time of the day with regards to the flights on EZY. Every time a new crew comes on board a plane at their home base they will be re-catered the following

• Crew Food
• Crew Water & Hot Drinks
• Passenger Cold Sandwiches (& salads)
• Passenger Hot Sandwiches

Load factors depend on number of sectors the crew are operating & length. Something like a Just a Jersey, you'll get maybe 15 sandwiches in total, whereas an Athens, you'll be looking at around 20-40 of each sandwich. The only exception to new food on an aircraft will be the first flight out of a night stop destination. For the AM Crew, they will not serve any sandwiches on their flight into their home base, for the PM crew it depends what is handed over to them by the disembarking crew, if they've got nothing left.... then the outbound crew can't sell anything.

The bars on board are all day bars. They will be loaded on for the aircraft's first flight of the day out of it's home base. Obviously the AM Night stopping crew will operate the previous days bar on the 1st sector into their home base and then be given a new bar on arrival by the caterers (if they turn up)

ahmetdouas

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kingstontoon

I almost fell off my seat today when I spotted that the new autumn / winter BOB menu had a half decent beer in it! Adnams Southwold Crystal Rye IPA. Perhaps not to everyone's taste but in my opinion a vast improvement over anything they've carried before. I bought two. The crew didn't believe me until they found the cans in the trolley.

Still wish it was free though.

Concerto

That sounds like an excellent beer. Similarly, on a Monarch flight I took a few months back they had Brewdog IPA and I purchased two, but that's because they had a special offer where you got the second can for a significant reduction.

Just recently, in long haul SWISS Business, they had the usual offer of Appenzeller Quöllfrisch but also a seasonal, Appenzeller Castegna, flavoured with chestnuts. Nobody could find it, except the purser who dug it out from the bottom of a trolley somewhere about half an hour later. At least it was free!

SvenAge

Still seem to get the freebies on LCY city flyer.

Skyline

Any ideas if this will be offered in CE?