AmaaiZeg

Rather odd experience on our first class Sin to Lhr flight. Offered a PDB and pyjamas and slippers after boarding. Menu could not be found. (Wrong one given on the way over to Sin as well). I had requested it before from YouFirst so knew what was on offer. Other passengers were shown the ?chef’s ingredients/allergies list? This was offered to my other half, showing pictures of the choices and I assume description/ingredients/allergies. Mysteriously a menu appeared on the side board the next morning. I must have slept well as I was not aware of the crew placing the menu there during the night. The wine glass filled to almost the top, might have something to do with that. No amenity bags were offered so I asked for one after dinner and was given one. In the morning I asked my other half if they had pro-actively given him an amenity bag. No, they hadn’t. I told him to ask for one as that is what is advertised. He did and was told they had run out of first class amenity bags and was given a CW one. Surely they know how many male and female passengers will be on board for the Lhr-Sin-Syd-Sin-Lhr flights?

GrannyWeatherwax

They don't know what flights they're running from one month to the next.

abligh

To be fair they probably do not know in advance the gender of AUPs, OpUps etc.

However, pre-pandemic when they had run out of first class amenity bags for men, they simply gave me the women's one, and I can confirm I did not catch girl-cooties or similar. If they did not at least offer this, I would suggest they should have, as they must know how many first class seats their plane has!

GrannyWeatherwax

They do know in advance the sex of AUPs. Certainly a couple of hours before the flight.

OpUps should be below fare-paying pax if it's really got to the stage where BA won't load 14 male and 14 female Amenity Kits onto each flight with First. It's not like they go off or explode at the end of the flight or anything if they're not handed out.

Genius1

No First amenity kits on SIN-LHR a few weeks ago either. We were handed Club ones.

BA are increasingly unable to offer anything resembling a normal service.

Exsilver

I was offered a Club kit last week on my SIN-LHR too.

LBA_flyer

Fixed that for you.

Will100

28 amenity kits?

Genius1

According to the crew on my flight, the amenity kits should have been loaded in SYD. This seems odd; surely they would be loaded at LHR and do the return trip with the aircraft?

flatlander

Gender isn't specified when booking a BA airline ticket. A title is specified but that title can be Dr, Professor, Captain, Reverend, etc, which give no indication of gender.

Meanwhile, even if you try to guesstimate the gender from the title, that doesn't tell you the amenity kit preference with complete reliability.

So no, BA does not know how many "male" and how many "female" amenity kits will be needed. The only reliable thing to do would be to measure usage and then load enough to cover the extremes (something like enough amenity kits to give 80% of the cabin one or the other).

flatlander

It's my understanding that many airlines ship amenity items to remote destinations by sea, because flying them to the remote destination for use on the return is more costly (it is air freight vs sea freight, which is always more expensive). Transporting things on an aircraft is not free, even for an airline, and careful cost control causes this not to be done where possible.

GrannyWeatherwax

By the time you check in they know. Your passport tells them your sex. And in any event, I stick with my suggestion that they ensure they have 14 of each for every journey. These tickets cost thousands and thousands of pounds - and it's supposed to be an impeccable service.

Loading 'enough to give 80% enough' is a crap way to approach this - it's First Class for crying out loud. It shows how badly conditioned you've become that you think this is somehow a reasonable approach. It is not.

AmaaiZeg

Oh dear Exsilver. No water on your outbound, cancelled flight on your inbound, no first class amenity kit. Were you lucky enough to get the menus on both flights ?
Sounds like they are deliberately loading less first class amenity bags. I’ve submitted a complaint via BA website complaint form. Hope you have as well.
Per flight leg it should be 8 bags, no? 2 rows of 4 seats? 8 seats, 4 flight sections. 32 bags for BA15 and BA16 flights? Is there not enough storage for these little bags. Do they really ship these?

efincomputer

They ran out of Men's large PJs on my JFK-LHR last month. Thankfully i'd already been given my, but I could here the CC talking to the gent behind me. I think there were at least 2 women out of the 8 pax in F, so less than 6 sets of Large male PJs for a flight? These are not items you expect them to run short of in F (albeit I don't think anyone flies BA for their PJs!).

SW7London

Not sure why they cant load additional kits - of both sexes - its not as if they are wasted if they arnt used - just reuse for next flight.

Interesting though the % of male/females in the F cabin, I would have thought three quarter Males compared to Females given my previous business and personal travel in F cabins. Wondering what other experiences are!