Breakfast at 830 AM, lunch at 530 PM — why?
 

I recently took the seasonal day flight JNB—LHR (seems like a no-brainer to get to sleep in your own bed instead of trying to sleep in an economy seat).

We were served the undistinguished hot breakfast that I usually decline at the end of a night flight soon after the 740 takeoff. Then, a few water and rounds (as you would see during a night flight) and a trolley service with full bar around what would have been lunch time. After starving their customers for nine hours, the crew then started serving the three-course hot lunch/dinner manner an hour and 20 minutes before landing at 1710 time/1910 JNB time. No other beverages than coffee and tea were on offer, requests for wine were curtly rebuffed with pressure of time, and the FAs were back as quickly as they could to clear the trays.

I get that it works for BA to cater the same meals as on the overnight flight, and just reverse the order. But what compels them to retain a timing of meals that is optimised for maximum night rest even during a flight that travels during the hours of the day both at origin and destination? Why have a plane full of passengers walking off remembering being hungry for nine hours and then being served an unpleasantly rushed meal, when BA could have timed the three-course lunch appropriately, and served it with the full bar service, at no additional cost? Must have been particularly galling for WTP passengers being served a half-decent business class meal and offered only coffee or tea to drink with it.

The further apart they have the meals the more time they have available to divide up for crew rest breaks. Therefore the later you serve the 2nd meal the more break time you get each. If they served the second meal 3 hours or more before landing to more evenly distribute them during the flight then you would have happy customers, but after the meal service was complete and cleared in you would have the crew sitting around doing nothing for the last 2 hours which they would rather spend on a longer break in the middle of the flight.

Maybe get rid of the second meal entirely and let the crew sit at the emergency exits for landing in their sleepsuits? That would maximise their rest. :)

I thought it would be something like that. Clearly, their comfort must come before the comfort of the passengers. God forbid they'd get out of their bunks half an hour earlier to give themselves enough time to let us at least have a glass of wine with our delayed lunch.

I thought there were snack packs available in the galley?

Kind of, I guess. The pretzels that would have been served if they'd bothered to run a bar service before the meal appeared in the galley six hours after breakfast.

I can rule out the second option: whenever longhaul airlines have tried to delay the first meal it tends to cause mini riots. Particularly in WT the boredom factor kicks in early, assuaged somewhat when people get lost in IFE / their books / tablets etc later in the flight. But winding back to 45 minutes after take off, passengers will have been through a tedious experience at the airport, no fast track, no lounges, probably an excessively long wait at the gate too, no priority boarding, strapped in for take off. Then cabin crew appear with food and drink (albeit not of interest to this OP) and usually that fixes things nicely. Delaying the first meal is the worst of all options, even on flights that depart at 02:00 hrs in the morning.

I think there should also have been some snack boxes available too, not just the pretzels, but I'm not an WT expert so I may be wrong on that (ie it is London outbound only)

Very true. JNB in particular has a remarkable and depressing shortage of places selling food to eat in or bring on the flight.

Same issue HND-LHR. Flight was at 0950 or so. Served breakfast 30 minutes in - then no more food until 1:30 before landing, ie around 2030 'body clock'. This was in WTP. I was in starving. Raided the (Y) galley and found a few tiny chocolate bars and pretzels.

I think they should shift the main meal to the first meal, and make it a brunch/lunch rather than breakfast. This would have a full drinks run prior to the meal, meal, tea and coffee service; then have a small snack box mid-flight; and then serve the small meal/hot breakfast before landing. I also dislike the compressed time for the small meal on BA long haul. Even if it is a light meal/breakfast, I feel it is rushed and they run out of time for coffee/tea and proper clearing of trays.