BA can’t win! Roster a 777 with CW seating and people complain that they didn’t get to sit in First...when they booked a Club Europe ticket! If BA want to seat staff in F it’s up to them.

I have one experience of the 777 to MAD in CE and the MF crew were super professional but did not complete the service. They were collecting trays at 20 mins to landing (they were delivering hot entrees at 40 mins) - no time for tea or coffee. On busier flights, some CSMs will skip the first bar round to ensure they complete the service (I’ve seen this on a busy LIS and even then service seemed to take the whole flight. On way back equally busy but 2 CSMs in CE and third cc member who had it under control and it flowed much better).

I don’t understand why it takes so long but then again I’ve never had to cook for 50 in a space the size of a bus stop as well as juggling lots of other things - I think I’d be tempted to shout “EVERYONE GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN FOR TEN SODDING MINUTES” which might not win me a golden ticket or be values compliant in setting the right tone...

I hope they can make it work as long band catering imho is very good.

So you saw uniformed people in the front cabin and assume they are non-revs. They could have been positioning crew or commuting crew, many of whom are exec cardholders, including gold cardholders. And you don’t get those by using staff travel.

I’d like to know too. My sense is it’s a combination of new service flows which just don’t work in the time available and a high MF turnover (MF can go for a month or two without doing shorthaul whereas obviously shorthaul is all the legacy Eurofleet do save for the very odd midhaul) leading to lack of experience. I don’t know if this has trickled into other departments - ie the team that actually design the service flows. I would hope they are experienced senior cabin crew / trainers rather than graduates with a degree in operations but I suspect I know the answer.

On Long band flights, I think the issue is partly due to having to deliver two courses (because BA cut the full size meal tray in half due to cabin densification). The equipment isn’t quite right either (the hot entree chargers do not properly fit on the tray) which presumably slows things down in constricted space.

But I get the sense it’s more a ‘flow’ issue rather than a ‘product’ issue?

In the olden days of Band 4, there used to be drinks served with canapes, so maybe the answer is to ditch the starter and bring back the canapes (which can be delivered at the same time as the drinks).

I wasn’t aware that anyone actually has to “cook” in a CE galley !?
Re-heating stuff is about the limit, I would have thought.

But I now have this wonderful mental image of a highly-skilled - albeit crotchety & cantankerous - chef, turning out top quality meals for demanding diners .....

It could be done if everyone was happy with just one drink. Which clearly most people aren’t! The problem is with very high Club loads where everyone wants multiple drinks and multiple top ups (thanks to thimble-sized glasses), 90 minutes can fly by without a single starter having been delivered - mainly because on the way back to the galley, the crew are constantly being stopped in order to satisfy top ups etc.

It’s no wonder that some Senior crew decide to skip the bar round altogether and launch straight into food with a drinks bar following behind. BA can’t have it all. If you are going to accept very high Club loads on shorthaul flights, then the service clearly isn’t going to be as personalised, and some requests will have to wait to be satisfied.

I remember flying to Nice with 134 in CE (767) and 105 on a Dusseldorf. Even for experienced crew, this is a real challenge.

Exactly. The best tactic when the cabin is as full as this is to take out the drinks and the tray ( Long Band). They can then have their drinks and their refills. Best of all, givemout doubles. It looks generous, takes little extra time, and can save time overall. I should not be surprised to see a return to small bottles as they are so much quicker to deliver. I’ll be sorry to see the big ones go, but I can see the sense. I used to fly NCE-LHR/LGW à lot and was staggered at the size of the CE cabin. On any équivalant flight in the so-called F cabin (or whatever it is now) of our OneWorld colleagues, you’d get a drink (as like as not not on the ground) you’d get a drink. No Champagne, mark you, “Bubbles” are de rigueur. With this you’d be invited to chose whichever bag of carbohydrates is the least unappealing maybe there’d be what is referred to as Refreshments. I think that the crews usually do a sterling job, and if I had a criticism of any, that would be sometime their timing is a little too casual on occasion.

I think what you have highlighted here is that the fundamental problem revolves around numbers : by which I mean ratio of CC to passengers.

When you cram such high loads into a shorthaul ‘business cabin’, something has to give. However, I don’t see this as a matter of “BA can’t have it all” ..... as you put it. In fact quite the opposite. BA end up doing very well out of it. In reality, it’s the paying customers who in practice lose out - whether that be in the form of insufficient drink top-ups, or delays in meal delivery.

I’m always impressed when flying s/h on various Asian or Australian carriers, where the fixed size of business cabins results in a personalised and unhurried experience. Even lesser-known carriers such as Malindo Air (a particular favourite of mine !) can offer a true premium experience. Of course they have chosen to limit the number of premium pax, all of whom receive not only good quality catering but a high level of service too.

All that said, you can’t deny BA have got the right formula from their own perspective. For as long as folk are happy to cough up CE fares, parents IAG are laughing all the way to the bank.