aon_sceal

A new wonderful BA experience.

Club Europe, LHR-OTP last night. After the meal service with 1h15m to go passengers (including me) asked for an additional drink, and were told "the bar is closed" and that they needed to keep some drinks onboard for the return flight.

When I pointed out that I could still purchase drinks from the highlife shop, they just apologised and said that the CSM had just decided they needed to close the bar.

A new low or a regular occurrence?

Will put a complaint in, what would one reasonably expect to receive in response?

AJA_

That is ridiculous although i can see the logic of trying to keep some alcohol available for the return trip if they were really running low.

But it sounds like that wasn't the real reason.

Why didn't you just buy the drink via the highlife shop and then bill that back to BA?

ThatT1Feeling

That doesn't sound good, especially on the OTP route which is one of the longer CE sectors and one which I travel reasonably frequently.

Once the meal service is complete on that route, I would normally have some kind of digestif afterwards - although the removal of Jack Daniels from the bar has kiboshed that to some extent - but there's always a glass of red wine to be had. I wonder if the flight was undercatered.

Re complaining, go ahead if it will make you feel better but I doubt there would be much recompense and my experience is that BA's strange attitude to complaints "you're a super valuable customer, I can understand how this must have made you feel" can make one feel even worse than before as it never actually addresses the root of the complaint.

Oh, and welcome to your first post, OP... I would welcome you to FT but it seems you've been around for a while!

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum aon_sceal, I hope that we see more of you here.

One obvious point to make is that if an incident happens once, it isn't generally a harbinger of something fundamental, it usually is just a one-of incident. Much as though FT has a lot of value as an incident register, it's something necessary to separate wheat and chaff. However on a relatively long European flight, that does some a little early, but it wouldn't be unusual if it happened some 30 minutes to arrival. Where the IFL (CSMs were abolished several years ago) may have had a point is that the crewing is both ways, so if there is a heavy drinking cohort outbound, then the face the ire of passengers on OTP to LHR if all the champagne (particularly) was consumed on an earlier flight - those passengers may feel the crew should have shown more discretion earlier. Your crew would have night stopped and it's a bit poor to hand over a problem to the next crew.

By all means make a complaint, it may be accumulated into a wider customer service recovery point.

hydro001

One full bar is allocated for the outbound flight, and one full bar is allocated for the inbound flight. If they have run out they have run out, especially on a band 4-5 flight where there is a pre meal bar service and then drinks with meal and uptake on alcohol is high.

Service of alcohol is at discretion of crew especially if uptake is high and also if passenger(s) are showing any sign of tipsiness.

EuroTraveller buy on board products do not belong to BA. Point about discretion re intoxication applies even if you are to pay.

If stock was low crew would have completed a trend report for company to consider catering more alcohol.

by all means put in a complaint but not sure if any realistic recompense justified.
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BA235

That does sound unusual. On the longer �thirsty� routes I�ve frequently encountered something becoming unavailable. As CWS says, this is often champagne, though on one flight I recall in addition the stocks of white wine and gin also ran dry. Usually determined topers can prevail !

Mercifully on the way back from Iceland last week the only thing that ran out were lemon slices.

Confus

Are seals required into shorthaul outstations? Sometimes on longhaul crew try to �get ahead� by completing bar paperwork and locking them ahead of time, and while the more experienced ones keep one open just in case, not all do. Wondering if something like this could explain what happened here, with blaming the inbound customers just a convenient excuse.

KARFA

It is hard to believe that consumption had been so high on this flight that there was literally nothing left in the bar by 90 minutes to go. Of course alternative theories might be available

aon_sceal

Helpful thoughts from all - and thanks first post, but a regular reader of other threads!

Yes, it was strange. I didn't notice any other customers who may have had too much to drink, but of course can't be sure. And can't say whether any advance closing up and paperwork was happening as I didn't notice.

Fair point c-w-s, it could be a once off - and it's been useful to hear others experience. This is my 2nd recent 'stocking' issue on a BA flight. The last one was minor, on return from Singapore last month, amenity kits were by request because they had run out. And also, later when I asked for a green tea, it also wasn't available because "the plane had been to Sydney and back" so they had run out. (Obviously no green tea available in Sydney or Singapore ) Cabin crew not to blame of course, I just assumed poor demand planning for the catering to blame. Obviously these are small things, and minor, but it's a real let down when left feeling like you've missed out on what you've paid for.

Grande Annee

I can’t believe that ALL alcohol had been consumed! Maybe catering had not loaded the correct amount?

GumshoeW12

On a TP run favourite like OTP? I can!

EJetter

Bars on shorthaul are round tripped and only need to be security sealed if the aircraft will be left unattended or for German turnarounds, however no bar paperwork is required. Most crews would have the seals ready to go but not clip them shut until securing the cabin for landing.

Can I help you

Closing the bar seems very strange to me, even if you left the return bar closed I’m sure that not everything had been consumed from the outbound bar.

PUCCI GALORE

God forgive me for saying this, but as the crew were overnighting - my nasty mind wonders if the bar had disappeared to be consumed that night at the hotel, That used to happen once upon a time - but this is the second time in a short while that we have heard of this here at FT. Naturally you cannot accuse anyone of that , but you should definitely flag this up to BA. Me? I would have asked to see the IFL and ask her/him why at least no one had come around to ask if any further drinks were required and that the bar was closing.

I sincerely hope that I am wrong - even if they bought stuff they should not have emptied the bar.

PresRDC

I did LHR-OTP last Saturday night. No issue. Doing OTP-LHR tomorrow morning. Not expecting huge alcohol consumption, but maybe I�ll be proven wrong.

if I was told the CSD decided no more booze, I�d ask to speak with the CSD.