Prospero

No disagreement from me on that. I tend to auto filter the PR spin. Reading between the lines, BA does appearing to be doing both

Tobias-UK

I like the Coronation Chicken, my 'miserable' is the current very bland 'Chicken Coleslaw' ... oh, and all the vegetarian ones!

James91

I've been flying CE lately to reach Silver, and now that's accomplished...I'll be going back to Y until this is over because the food is DIRE. That ham and cheese croissant...no thank you.

ermis177

Disappointed with BA32 F

Tobias-UK

It just shows how people's tastes are different, I quite like the ham and cheese croissant - although I remove the top half of the croissant to save a calorie or two

James91

It's not about the taste of the croissant, it's about the fact we've gone from hot breakfasts like a full English or a nice omelette (my personal fave), to cold, chewy croissants served in a box so they can cut costs (I'm sorry, GTFO talking about safety - look at other airlines). I love BA but...the catering is unacceptable and I'll vote with my feet .

Tobias-UK

And so you should, if you are not happy with a product don't buy it, that's exactly what I do

crazyanglaisy

An elitist view, I confess, but I take issue with sandwiches being judged suitable for a business class offering, COVID or not. They're the lowest common denominator and are illustrative of everything that is wrong with the tendency towards laziness and impoverished imagination in vast swathes of British catering. Bring back the Ploughman's

ISTFlyer

Everyone has choices, everyone could choose whatever airline they would. However, the key term within this forum is objectivity.
I would like to thank the OP because (s)he created this meaningful thread where members shared their opinions on both sides.

Similar to what ​​​​​ermis177 said, I have learned lots of things in this forum ( including how to use iTA Matrix, status matches, and even more basic things ) that I didn't know in the past and now I'm glad that with my knowledge I am helping others here in an objective way providing information or when expressing my opinions.

Let's also keep in mind that the BA board in FlyerTalk is the most popular and most frequently visited board so I find it ethical to have more broader threads here in the BA forum compared to smaller boards which have narrower threads as the number of active members over there are lower compared to the BA board.

In addition, I think that this thread belongs here as this thread mainly focuses on "what are BA's competitors doing during COVID and how is BA's response" rather than complimenting the other airline.

I also don't like some features about the BA board, ( for example: there is not a newbie lounge, there are multiple threads discussing same issues splitting up the discussion, etc... ) but as the moderators are doing hard work to keep this forum organized and I could imagine that it should be really hard to organize 120k+ threads and 2.6M+ posts, I stick with what it is. If someone is not satisfied with what the forum looks like you could try posting your opinions in the Suggestion Box board.

I hope I didn't bothered you with this post, but I felt that I needed to post something like this one in order to avoid the discussion to convert to a verbal battle.

mrow

Totally agree re the sandwich. They’re crap.

I can recall threads on here lambasting AA for serving pizza as the second meal option in J. Whilst I accept that wasn’t in COVID times, minimising crew/customer contact and offering something better than a sandwich are not mutually exclusive.

orbitmic

Why not indeed. The important thing is that people indeed have the right to react in any way that they wish and at any time that they wish, and there are plenty of potential effects between doing nothing and "boycotting" an airline (the infamous, "I'll never fly xxx again")

To give an example, I have been one of the people unhappy with BoB in Y. I was told repeatedly that it made no difference, that people don't "fly for the birdseed", that I'd get used to it, etc.

It's been several years, and I can confirm that the change had a genuine effect on my custom, but the one I "chose" based on my own complex sense of value.

So for instance, I get a certain value flying BA from LHR (for most trips, the airport is more convenient for me, CCR access is something I find really valuable and enjoyable, etc)., but now, BA represents very limited value for me from/to LGW, so before BoB, I had around 10-15 LGW flights with BA, which represented the core of my LGW short haul flights, ever since, I have had 0-2 BA flights a year from LGW with U2 now getting the vast majority of my LGW flying as I now mostly select based on price, and as I book in advance, U2 is almost always better value.

Conversely, I was an occasional user of CE before BoB (either straight or upgrades) - say about 15-20% of my European flights on BA - but do not buy CE since. This time it's a mixture of two effects, a refusal to pay extra to get more or less what I was getting before anyway, and a conscious choice that no airline will define the rules of the games for me, ie I consider an airline's full operations, not just the segmentation that they wish, and I will thus modify my behaviour where I want, not where they want and as this has affected my view of BA as an airline, I just don't consider them a full service airline within Europe since and thus treat them for flights within Europe as low cost, albeit low cost that gives me lounge access instead of my needing to use my Priority Pass.

I still use them for long haul both Y and J/F, but at the moment, most of my long haul has been cancelled and I have chosen for many of them to be refunded rather than rebooked. My main reason is the handling of the BAEC "extensions" and not the food, but it is very serious annoyance, and I add some minor annoyance with the food and drink especially in J which I find wholly unacceptable and in F (ie I'm less bothered in Y where I find the differential with previous offer less despite the "snack" approach). I'll keep an eye on how things developed before deciding whether to change anything further.

ComputerCommuter

Without getting into the debate whether we should have Swiss reviews on this thread, I think the OP has hit it on the head. For me, the key is how BA appears, IMHO, to be hiding behind safety, when it's really penny-pinching. If someone with more experience can tell me the difference between a member of staff taking a nicely laid out tray with say a salad or cold meat selection and a desert differs from the same member of staff taking out a box with a sandwich, then enlighten me please.

The one thing that we need to keep in mind at these times is retaining customers whilst attracting new. If other airlines are offering full service for roughly the same price or less, than a BA croissant, then guess what they'll remember going forward. It shouldn't be about saving £5-6-7 a meal, it should be about retaining passengers.

Nine times out of ten, I have to connect somewhere in my journey. I've flown 3 BA Club flights in the past 6 weeks. If it hadn't been for the excellent BA Cabin Crew, I'd look have looked at my Miles & More or Skyteam accounts a bit more closely.

longliveKA

Sad to read that people are impressed by what looks not much better than a intra-european Y meal in the 80's and 90's.
Those were the times when "misery class" came with warm food, appetizer, cheese, crackers and dessert, and of course wine. Only the champagne did truly belong to C class together with lobster. (anybody remembers the SAS's Euro Class advertisement of the 1990's?).

jackcarr

Thanks for the reply. That's pretty shocking! I've found AMEX to be pretty poor on refunds actually, I came pretty close to leaving them altogether last year when I tried to chargeback a completely defective product that the retailer washed their hands of. Even after pointing out my £40k annual spend they didn't care.

Hopefully it won't come to small claims court if my flights are cancelled but good to prepare myself for the pushback from Swiss!

LCY8737

The small claims procedure is actually extremely straightforward. The only delay in getting my money back was the various other options I tried that failed. Next time with LX it will be straight down the legal route.