Originally Posted by TRISTAR1979 (Post 27785977)

I didn't make any purchases, but did Bring On Board a Tiger beer and packet of Chilly Kettle chips from the Lounge.

Originally Posted by TRISTAR1979 (Post 27785977)

Having done my best to avoid BOB by booking my domestic flights with BA Cityflyer to and from LCY, the system conspired against me last night. My flight (BA2212) was cancled after a creeping delay, and we were all booked onto the BA1478 @ 20.40 from LHR to GLA, and I got my first (and hopefully only) experience of BOB.

Shortly after take-off, an announcement was made that they would be starting the inflight service and referred to the Menu's in the seat pocket. He then apologised that only one payment device was operational and that it would take longer than normal to pass through the cabin apologising if they didn't manage to get to every row by the end of the flight.

No hot food orders were taken or even mentioned.

Both carts appeared and started passing through with one payment device being shared between them, this created an incredibly slow cabin pass, I would estimate around 12 / 15 sales made and it took the complete flight to reach the back of the cabin.

Given that I was a last moment pax on this flight I was positioned at row 20 of the A320 so I could see the process quite well. I was the first to ask for water that I am aware of and was offered the bottled water for sale, to which I refused politely and requested the free water from the back. This was delivered instantly, and prompted a few others behind me who obviously witnessed my request being fulfilled to do the same.

I didn't make any purchases, but did Bring On Board a Tiger beer and packet of Chilly Kettle chips from the Lounge. The crew did look a little confused to see the Tiger beer can when collecting the rubbish (at 5 mins to landing).

Overall, not many takers for BOB and the atmosphere had defiantly changed on board, with many grumbles audible regarding the new policy. Coincidently I did find the menu in my seat pocket, which would have looked good had it not been torn in two... obviously someone before me didn't think much of it.

This was not the normal enjoyable BA experience, and I didn't really care for it to be honest, although that could have been exasperated by the fact I would be arriving home 5 hours late. I will continue to avoid BA from LHR and LGW when at all possible, barring a repeat of the above scenario.

I should say, that my flight from GLA to LCY in the morning was fantastic, it reminded me of BA years ago. Bags of leg room, friendly crew, and a cooked breakfast with cup of tea and an orange juice... Just perfect!

Originally Posted by Tiffywren (Post 27786185)

^ This is my cunning plan for tonight's EDI-LGW flight.

Originally Posted by subject2load (Post 27786380)

It's a smart enough plan - and totally understandable too.

However ....I'm sure I'm not the first to make this prediction, but I am very confident that we will see significant reactive developments on the part of BA in terms of their lounge 'policy'.

There have been reports of staff having a quiet word with lounge users who are deemed to be taking noticeably excessive quantities of F&B from the the lounge supplies. Based on descriptions of behaviour in some such reports, I'm inclined to support the staff. But BA management will almost certainly introduce stricter, more formalised methods of control. It's not hard to understand why they would want to go down this route : they will see it as the only way to address what is in their eyes a loss-loss scenario : a much lower take-up of BoB than projected in the business plan, coupled with extra costs for lounge catering ; a double-whammy.

Wait for the (additional) signage & printed warnings - coming to a BA lounge near you. It will be sad, if only because such signage could well change the atmosphere from a 'premium' facility into something more akin to a downmarket pub.

Originally Posted by TRISTAR1979 (Post 27785977)

Having done my best to avoid BOB by booking my domestic flights with BA Cityflyer to and from LCY, the system conspired against me last night. My flight (BA2212) was cancled after a creeping delay, and we were all booked onto the BA1478 @ 20.40 from LHR to GLA, and I got my first (and hopefully only) experience of BOB.

Shortly after take-off, an announcement was made that they would be starting the inflight service and referred to the Menu's in the seat pocket. He then apologised that only one payment device was operational and that it would take longer than normal to pass through the cabin apologising if they didn't manage to get to every row by the end of the flight.

No hot food orders were taken or even mentioned.

Both carts appeared and started passing through with one payment device being shared between them, this created an incredibly slow cabin pass, I would estimate around 12 / 15 sales made and it took the complete flight to reach the back of the cabin.

Given that I was a last moment pax on this flight I was positioned at row 20 of the A320 so I could see the process quite well. I was the first to ask for water that I am aware of and was offered the bottled water for sale, to which I refused politely and requested the free water from the back. This was delivered instantly, and prompted a few others behind me who obviously witnessed my request being fulfilled to do the same.

I didn't make any purchases, but did Bring On Board a Tiger beer and packet of Chilly Kettle chips from the Lounge. The crew did look a little confused to see the Tiger beer can when collecting the rubbish (at 5 mins to landing).

Overall, not many takers for BOB and the atmosphere had defiantly changed on board, with many grumbles audible regarding the new policy. Coincidently I did find the menu in my seat pocket, which would have looked good had it not been torn in two... obviously someone before me didn't think much of it.

This was not the normal enjoyable BA experience, and I didn't really care for it to be honest, although that could have been exasperated by the fact I would be arriving home 5 hours late. I will continue to avoid BA from LHR and LGW when at all possible, barring a repeat of the above scenario.

I should say, that my flight from GLA to LCY in the morning was fantastic, it reminded me of BA years ago. Bags of leg room, friendly crew, and a cooked breakfast with cup of tea and an orange juice... Just perfect!

Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave (Post 27754497)

BA 565 - LIN to LHR T5
13 January 2017
====

One concern I have, which I will send to CR Newcastle, is that my mobile telephone was out of my possession, and out of my sight, for 4 minutes, timings above. It was returned to me with the Recent Transactions page visible, rather than Account Details which was showing when it left my possession. I accept that was probably just a handling accident, it's easily done, but still it irked me. I have a PIN lock on switching to other Apps, but I don't think many people set that up. The wallet with my phone had various work badges, my Party card, and credit cards, which I would never normally let go out of my sight. Had I been extra sharp at the time I could have headed this off - I would have simply handed over my BAEC card instead.
====

Originally Posted by subject2load (Post 27786809)

Hi CWS - just by way of an aside to the core content of the CR response you received (and which, for all I know, was satisfactory - difficult for others to judge without seeing the actual text) : I wonder how you actually felt about the fact that "every second sentence was personalised" and that it contained "11 apologies or expressions of regret" .....?

In your shoes I'm pretty sure I would have found it smarmy and grovelling, to the point of being totally insincere - and perhaps even patronising.

Apologies - when well-executed - can of course be seen as gracious & very welcome. Indeed, often more so than any form of 'material' redress. BUT I also believe that there is something horribly skewed about the culture of organisation that gets so many basics wrong - and then litters its response to a complaint with so many words of regret that those same words become almost meaningless by virtue of their mere robotic-like repetition.

Originally Posted by hungry (Post 27786684)

I refuse to BoB even if I am dying of thirst, on the principal !!!

Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave (Post 27785848)

That's a very interesting memo, I think it's reassuring that there is some self awareness (and they use the same uptempo management-speak as I inflict on my colleagues!). So very much worth reading all of your message and in a way it would be better, from a public confidence point of view, if they could share this with their customers to indicate they're not on a separate planet to the passengers.

Originally Posted by NickB (Post 27787288)

It is funny how the same printed word can be read so differently by different individuals. I read this completely different to you and suggesting that they ARE on a separate planet to passengers or, for that matter, flying crew. What this seems to me to be saying is: All is tickety-boo apart some ultra minor problems on a minuscule number of flights, which was to be expected on a massive roll out like this. The problem seems to be primarily that some of you are not the brightest buttons in the box: we systematically check that the machines we give you do work and yet somehow some of you still manage to struggle with them so we will send some people along on flights to show you how it is done.
Personally I find this message rather troubling and dispiriting.