The Geek

Half of the flights we do are to Tenerife these days, and I've noticed some interesting service variations among the crews over the past couple of years on this route.

One of these is after take off when some crews will both do a bar run first, whereas others one will start the food and one will do the drinks. { One even didn't do a drinks run until they brought out the food. 🙄 }

To me the service standard should be drinks first on a flight of this length as the BA burger I had in the lounge will stop me from dying if I had to wait an extra 20 minutes for my food.

Another thing is that second knife and fork they give you in club Europe. To me the most useless weight on the aircraft. Heathrow finally dropped them last year, but the Gatwick caterers still haven't got the memo. 🙄


What's your thoughts? Also have you observed any differences in service standards.

Can I help you

You are correct about the service standards, it should always be a separate bar round before the meal other than when the meal is breakfast where it’s the other way around. If the crew do a combined service they are just being lazy.

Smid

I'm pretty sure the Alicante flight last month we had back had no drinks first, they only came with the food. Seen that a few times. I've found CE VERY variable and usually expect to go and ask for any further drinks after meal service, and not be offered any. Only fly once every three or four months.

I've had EXCELLENT Dublin flights in the limited time they have, and very disappointing Prague flights, taking much more time, both there and back.

hydro001

ALC is a band 2 flight so it's a one hit combined meal and drink service with no separate bar round. Hot drinks and cold drinks are offered at same time of meal.

ermis177

I don’t fly CE often but most of my flights have been very good to excellent. If I remember correctly my last CE flight was last year. Very good experience.

ThatT1Feeling

My only comment is that I actually miss the second knife and fork (well, knife especially) Buttering my cracker with the knife I’ve used for the main course isn’t really on.

_nate

Yes, buttering is the main justification for that. I have had to mess around with buttery knives on other airlines far too often. Then there is the issue of whether the fork is used for something creamy but later potentially something solid. I think two sets of cutlery are better than one on a premium service.

labdoctor

Still don't know why ALC was relegated from band 3 to 2 😳

chriswiles

I've posted a few times on here that I've noticed this and it can be frustrating. I flew to IBZ 5 times in CE last year, so you could say 10 flights in total and they weren't all the same level of service. A couple of flights were amazing, with menus, pre-dinner drinks service, hot towels and they got to the point I turned down more top-ups. Others so poor you received a single drink with the meal and I was getting up to see where the crew were and they were eating up front with the curtain closed and service seemed to be over after they'd served the food. To be fair, mostly on flights back from IBZ, so I guess the return flight was the only chance they got to eat.

Just wanted to finish with something positive though: when the crew get it right, they set a high standard. Far better than domestic flights in the US, even in (domestic) First, for me. CE leaves those standing. I flew MIA to JFK, which is around 3 hours, in F, got a small salad as my meal and a single drink. The single crew member then just walked off to help economy and didn't return for ages, leaving us with the trays for nearly an hour and no top-up, nothing.

Also, on the same flight, economy passengers constantly came through to the F toilet, often forming a queue. I asked the AA F lady why this is the case as BA doesn't allow this in CE and she said that they never stop them in AA! Got very frustrating trying to eat with people standing in the aisle waiting for the toilet.

ba_cityflyer

Sadly there are too many new recruits these days who don’t know what they’re doing.

Of course it should be a drinks run with nuts first, as others have said.

Gone are the wonderful old-school Eurofleet finesse days.

One bug-bear of mine on short-haul is that half the crew don’t hand out the menus, even when they are loaded.

chriswiles

Or, worse for me, they hand them out, so you can look through and choose, only for the crew to tell you the first two choices are gone: so one option left, sort of defeating the point of having a menu. That happened for me on a flight back from MYK in October where they were already down to 1 choice by row 4 (out of 8).

CatchThePigeon

What is the service standard for pouring drinks on Band 4 CE flights? Taking at G&T as an example, I've had variations of poured to their liking by CC behind the curtain then served to me on a tray; poured behind the curtain with half the bottle and half the can with the remainder of both handed to me; and lastly the good old, here's two bottles of gin and a can of tonic to make it myself. I'd rather make my own to be honest but if they insist on opening beforehand then at least give me the remnants of the bottle and the can.

Very much agree with the OP that getting a drink first on a Band 4 flight is a must.

The Geek

I noticed those variations too. Ditto in the make it myself camp.

Duck1981

I had a few AF intra-Europe J flights last week and all were excellent with great crew.

All crew looked quite experienced and knew what they were doing, so I assume they were protected by a strong union and the French state during Covid and not subject to redundancies across the board, and hence they don't work for a company which needs desperately staff so it lowers the entry standards and hires experienced TikTokers who do the job for the reel/ gram/ followers.

visit14

Are the foil/plastic covers meant to be removed before the tray is handed over?