THR

Given the current and well publicised heat wave, surely a responsible parent has water with them anyway.

Don’t always rely on others.

Welcome On Board

The crew could/should still have completed the BOB service using manual slips but it's very time consuming and I doubt they'd have got very far down the cabin.

LapLap

Water gets stripped away from every single parent when they go through airport security.

One then needs to juggle kids and bags and navigate a departures lounge to find water. Not all airports have taps, not all parents can give their kids tap water (or drink it themselves), not all parents have enough change in the foreign currency to buy it (or not want to validate and encourage price the airport’s price gauging on principle), or have the time to do so, or want to overstimulate their kid by dragging them into a shop and focus instead on settling and calming them for the flight, or any other number of reasons but not taking away from the main point which is:

Water gets stripped away from every single parent when they go through security.

Anything rather than admit that where we have fallen to now - unable to rely on getting a drink of water on a BA flight - is pitiful.

CHCflyer

Whilst you are right in a statistical sense, hundreds who have a lousy experience don't come here to post their grievance either. They maybe fly once a year and don't know what silver status is. I myself use BA (usually Club) once a year half a dozen times when visiting family in the UK and my flights these last two years have had an appalling service record out of the dozen or so flights I flew them. OK, one flight cancelled (mine) out of hundreds, but 150 passengers dumped at LHR at 23.00 with no support. On another there was no catering for any passengers and BA crew announced that water would be served to Club class passengers only - that crew loved the flight based upon the fun and laughter in the galley
As long as we keep cutting BA more and more slack they will continue to take your patronage for granted - and some sort of patriotic, football fan BA allegiance will help send them down an irrevocable path. Many complaints here can be bought off with some Avios bung - and BA knows this, meaning they don't really need to fix the issues as long as it costs them virtual money.. It's clear where their priority lies when they view Ryanair as their competition but not Emirates.
Britain needs a healthy, strong and profitable airline that connects us to the globe with a level of service resembling what they smoothly promote in their advertising (or why bother advertising aspirational branding like BA's?). Instead they have concentrated on running two mediocre airlines on the same plane; one up front and one down the back, Unfortunately they forgot that passengers on each of these airlines flies on the same plane and enjoys equally failing standards.
And I find it deeply insulting that people here blame the victim for not preparing for a water issue on a plane that has a galley, water tanks, a catering load and crew who have partial responsibility for serving out glasses of water.
Again, I apologise for sending this thread in an unintended direction, but this IS symptomatic of a deep malaise - I work in the industry (but not an airline, but take 150 flights per year on regional, short haul, long haul and usually business class paying with my own money)) and know what success and failure looks like in aviation.

CHESHLAD

what date was this ?

lcylocal

This flight was coming from Crete, so they did have the advantage of a touch more time. Looks like this flight is normally around 3h45m on FR24.

IAN-UK

I think the point being made is that while flights where "things go wrong" are blessedly small in number, the incidence of those rogue flights appears to be increasing. There certainly seem to be many more reports of inconveniences among this forum's threads.

Sure some inconveniences involve rarefied aggravations such as cabin crew failing to greet Gold members, not being able to board before others, or slow service in first-class, but these are often gripes attached to more serious issues which trigger the complaints.

Apart from one full 45-minute wait to dock at T3, my life on BA is much the same as it has been in previous years. Sure I've been frustrated by a raft of cancellations and schedule changes, and feel growing exasperation with the airline's website. But I am aware that others have suffered more serious failures and from reports in these threads the frequency of those failures appears to have edged up: and inevitably those laws of averages you reference mean that I, and you too, will get bitten sooner or later.

HIDDY

I've never had to travel with kids so have no idea what it's like.....although the missus can be a handful at times right enough. She's the water drinker so usually always has a bottle of water with her. If not, she just asks a member of crew for water if she's desperate for some...never been refused yet. The OP doesn't say if they asked for water and was refused or not.

Dea Certe

Did they serve coffee, tea or juice? I’m trying to figure out why no water. Supply chain issues? Was bottled water not boarded? Beverage cups not available? Canned juices or soft drinks?

Sounds like a fairly junior crew who might have worried about running out of bottled water, Or glasses/cups. Sadly, much service training is left to fellow crew members as management is anxious to get the staffing on board ASAP.

Andriyko

You did arrive safely at your destination, did not you? The cabin and flight crews did their jobs. I am sorry but you are responsible for yourself and your kids. The last time I was at LGW they had plenty stores where you could buy water. You did not. I understand that you relied on BA selling you water but you should always have your own. It is aviation. Things can always go wrong.

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

I personally carry an extra bottle of water with me just in case ( ie today I had a 90min wait for bags at EDI). It can be a little annoying at times not to need it then have to discard it /drink it in one prior to transit security. Also at times there can be a lengthy time between end of service on board and landing ie circling/convoluted approach patterns

Regards

TBS

Can I help you

On these flights there are BOB products which cannot be given away free by the crew as they are owned by a company called Tourvest, other than the products loaded in the front galley there is very little in the rear galley for ET customers.
From LHR there are small bottles of water, pretzels or breakfast bars and all of these are handed out after takeoff, from LGW there have large bottles of water which they use to pour into glasses plus the same pretzels and breakfast bars.
In the OPs situation on LGW flights they could only give out more water if they had plastic glasses left and would they would have to use the water from the aircraft water tank, for LHR flights they only have about 30 plastic glasses for use with the sold BOB products.

BillyBleach

Friday 14th

BillyBleach

An hour into the flight (2.5 hrs after boarding due to the delay), and seemingly due to various complaints, the cabin crew came through with a trolley with large water bottles and plenty of cups.

Up to that point they were largely huddled in the galley trying to make the POS terminals work.

Cabin service director (or whatever the title is these days with euroflyer) was being sought after quite a lot leading up to the water service. Did seem very apologetic but I’m still none the wiser why the crew were so slow to offer water?

bisonrav

The duty to provide appropriate refreshments starts when there's a departure delay of 3 hours for a flight from Crete (over 1,500km). So 1.5 hours ground delay into 1 hour after departure really isn't excessive. At a guess they were prioritising trying to get the PoS units working because of the length of the flight and the likelihood that there would be hungry and thirsty passengers wanting to purchase. Worth recalling that there was absolutely no entitlement to anything at all beyond the drink and refreshment offered as part of the ET package, which isn't exactly going to slake a raging thirst.

Possibly they could have run the water and snack earlier, but you only get one of these anyway and whether it's after 15 minutes or an hour into a long flight isn't all that significant. Really does underline the importance of looking after yourself in economy.