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Buy on board: Experiences and reactions from BA's shorthaul economy service

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Old Jan 11, 2017, 7:42 am
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Last edit by: KARFA
This thread focuses on experiences and reactions for the implementation of buy on board for shorthaul, mainly led by impressions taken from flying on board British Airways' shorthaul services.

An information thread exists for your questions, particularly if they are on factual matters, here:
Buy on board: Information guide for BA shorthaul economy services

If you have an opinion about the concept of Buy on Board, the right thread is:
Buy on board: Implemented on BA short haul - opinions on the concept

Photos of current BoB menu (September 2018) post #125 in information thread
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Buy on board: Experiences and reactions from BA's shorthaul economy service

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Old Jan 10, 2017, 7:43 pm
  #1  
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Buy on board: Experiences and reactions from BA's shorthaul economy service

From Wednesday 11 January 2017, British Airways introduced a buy on board menu for most shorthaul services in UK and the rest of Europe, replacing food, snacks and refreshments services which had previously been free at the point of service.

This thread is for you to give your experiences, anecdotes and reactions to the implementation of buy on board. Kindly note that the thread referenced in resources below had a lot of commentary in it, and these do not really need to be repeated here, this thread is about real life experiences. However any experiences you have had on the implementation of buy on board, and your reactions, will be most welcome in this thread.

There is a separate thread for information on this development, so if you have a specific query on some factual issue, this is probably the best place to visit:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...-services.html
If you have an opinion about buy on board, the right thread for your contribution is:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...hort-haul.html

Over to you. This thread may need to be adapted as information comes in. Please spare a thought for our volunteer Moderators, who I am sure would be grateful for your help, prudence and commonsense over coming weeks.

Resources:
BA.com online menu - food: http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/...nomy-food-menu
BA.com online menu - drink: http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/...my-drinks-menu

Main FT threads started before the introduction of Buy on Board (the first gives experiences of Avios compensation given to existing bookings)
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...hort-haul.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...an-t-wait.html

Last edited by Petrus; Jan 16, 2017 at 1:39 pm
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Old Jan 10, 2017, 8:23 pm
  #2  
zsc
 
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Why two threads for the same topic? Wouldn't it be easier to just have one?
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Old Jan 10, 2017, 10:02 pm
  #3  
 
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Originally Posted by zsc
Why two threads for the same topic? Wouldn't it be easier to just have one?
I think the point is that the first one is informative, telling FTers what is available and the second is to be used for recording people's experiences
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Old Jan 10, 2017, 10:36 pm
  #4  
 
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Thanks c-w-s.

I have a domestic flight later today so will report my experience.
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Old Jan 10, 2017, 11:30 pm
  #5  
 
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On board now. Shiny m&s menu in place but nothing mentioned, well presented menu but I'm still exceptionally grumpy about the lack of gin on my return...
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Old Jan 10, 2017, 11:40 pm
  #6  
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Originally Posted by philthegreek
I think the point is that the first one is informative, telling FTers what is available and the second is to be used for recording people's experiences
Yes, it's really as simple as that.

The information thread should be kept clutter free as much as possible.

The experiences one was started so as to record since it is going live today what people's views are on it being launched/how it went etc.
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Old Jan 10, 2017, 11:52 pm
  #7  
chp
 
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On the first BHD-LHR flight of the day now. BOB isn't going to reach this service until the return from LHR this morning. Perhaps as expected there's no BOB menus or other literature on board yet.

I'm kin​​​​​d of disappointed that I've missed out!

Last edited by chp; Jan 10, 2017 at 11:58 pm Reason: Turns out there were plenty of in-flight magazines. Just not in my row!
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Old Jan 11, 2017, 12:18 am
  #8  
 
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Good idea to have this separate thread ^

I look forward to reading people's actual experiences of BoB.
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Old Jan 11, 2017, 12:24 am
  #9  
 
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Appears to be more management staff in T3 lounge, noticed them have a quiet word with a couple of people regarding crisps are for consumption in lounge only. Not sure if the 4 packets of crisps and a dozen pastries were to make up for BOB or just normal behaviour.
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Old Jan 11, 2017, 12:32 am
  #10  
 
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Originally Posted by where next
Appears to be more management staff in T3 lounge, noticed them have a quiet word with a couple of people regarding crisps are for consumption in lounge only. Not sure if the 4 packets of crisps and a dozen pastries were to make up for BOB or just normal behaviour.
Hilarious

Typical (current) BA behaviour - a great way to piss off your high value/frequent flyers.

I'm on a ET sector on Friday morning, so will report back on similar findings.
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Old Jan 11, 2017, 12:47 am
  #11  
 
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Shiny new menus present and correct on board BA1474.
Dont think I'll buy anything but I'll be keeping an eye out on how things go for my fellow pax...
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Old Jan 11, 2017, 12:50 am
  #12  
 
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Well on ba388 to BRU this morning things didn't go too well. The crew seemed to be having lots of issues with the payment system which looked like an iPad based platform with a phone bolted onto the back and just couldn't get it to work properly saying things like "is this how it works". From what I could work out both transactions I watched we're on cards, one on a BA Amex and neither would go through despite being tried on two of the machines. The solution was eventually found by manually entering all of the card details.



Got to row 3 of ET by the time we'd started our descent and had served 2 people. I'd estimate the revenue at under £10...

Product looked ok, apart from the coffee which appeared to be identical as pre-bob only in designer paper cups.

Crew looked embarrassed but were friendly enough when I asked how it was going.
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Old Jan 11, 2017, 1:00 am
  #13  
 
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With all the focus on BoB, it might be useful to have a fresh up-to-date comparison with other competing carriers. I am (sorry to say) flying Ryanair tomorrow (over £100 cheaper on a return flight of 1 hour 10min each way than other carriers, so that would have to be an awful lot of sandwiches to bring about price parity!). It's been a while since i last flew on FR, so it will be a useful comparison......perhaps easyJet should be thrown into the mix too?
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Old Jan 11, 2017, 1:00 am
  #14  
 
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The back clash is already live on twitter.
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Old Jan 11, 2017, 1:23 am
  #15  
 
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Originally Posted by liamrugby
Well on ba388 to BRU this morning things didn't go too well. The crew seemed to be having lots of issues with the payment system which looked like an iPad based platform with a phone bolted onto the back and just couldn't get it to work properly saying things like "is this how it works". From what I could work out both transactions I watched we're on cards, one on a BA Amex and neither would go through despite being tried on two of the machines. The solution was eventually found by manually entering all of the card details.



Got to row 3 of ET by the time we'd started our descent and had served 2 people. I'd estimate the revenue at under £10...

Product looked ok, apart from the coffee which appeared to be identical as pre-bob only in designer paper cups.

Crew looked embarrassed but were friendly enough when I asked how it was going.
Surely at £2.30 the coffee has got to be bigger than pre-BOB? Surely?? Someone humour me....
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