jimkwatson

A friend & her elderly mother flew ATH-LHR yesterday on the 09:50 BA639. When she arrived at LHR she sent me this:
”No food in Club today, 21 meals and 48 people. I managed to get one meal for the both of us, they had no record of the gluten free I’d ordered for her. When we landed they handed out £10 M&S vouchers. I’ve written to complain”.

They were in 1D/F and she is Gold.
From what I can see the aircraft night stops in ATH having come in from LHR 13 hours the prior evening as BA638. Am I right in assuming CE should be re-catered at ATH given that perishable food surely wouldn’t last 16 hours (3 hours LHR-ATH followed by 13 hours on ground at ATH)?
I’ve heard of not getting one’s preferred meal choice, and the Champagne running out in CE, but to under cater to such an extent is (hopefully?!) not the norm?

scottishpoet

Even with the night stop the flight is catered from london

Same on most if not all short haul night stops.

There is a possibility something went wrong with the storage of the meals overnight and that is why so few were available.

jimkwatson

Thanks for that. I had no idea they could hold perishable food for that long. I’ve learned something!

South London Bon Viveur

Although the food is probably not worth much more than £10, the gesture is inadequate. Whilst these things happen, the attempted service recovery is not good enough. It's as if BA are trying to get away with it, which I find poor.

c1223

I believe they have dry ice in the trolleys that keep the meals refridgerated overnight. Hopefully one of those with a definitive answer will be along to clarify.

shefgab

All European catering is done from London. No top ups are available downroute if passenger numbers change overnight. Night stopping services have the breakfast loaded in cool boxes to keep them cool for the morning.

LondonAussie

Agreed on both counts.

Some of the CE meals I’ve had I would probably not pay much more than £5 for (the photo thread always amuses me in the way some people fawn over them).

Anyway I’ve also had an occasion on a much shorter flight where they ran out of meals and also were unable to offer an alternative from the speedbird cafe. I wrote a complaint and BA responded with a £100 evoucher.

The worst apart about this is it being the return flight, so they should have known many hours before you boarded that they wouldn’t have a meal for everyone. Plenty of time to remedy it in advance you would think. I suppose they’ll say they did by acquiring the £10 M&S vouchers to be ready for you on arrival!

catandmouse

This seems like pathetic service recovery. I suppose the "computer says no" means that they weren't allowed to find substitute meals in ATH, which I imagine is more than capable of rustling up 20 or so meal trays without the 36 hours advance notice that LHR requires. Is is possible that the meals were loaded on the outbound but someone forgot to load the ice boxes and the crew only discovered the mishap when they boarded the plane in the morning? It might have been nice for an announcement before boarding, to allow passengers to get a snack. It's a relatively long short-haul flight after all.

bisonrav

Service recovery for no CE meals is minimally 5000 avios. The voucher is a stopgap so you get something to eat.

KARFA

if i had to guess, this was the issue that the storage for some meals failed. and it would only become apparent when the cc boarded in the morning and starting preparing.

pallan12

Had similar situation on same route/flight no. a couple of weeks ago. Cabin crew were frustrated to say the least but did their best to cobble together some different options meaning no one got a "full" breakfast but every one got something. Didn't complain since 1) I got something at least and 2) the crew really tried their best in a tough situation. Yours on the other hand sounds different and unacceptable.

UKTraveller4Fun

i wonder if actually it would be better to complain even in this situation. If BA are allowed to keep getting away with things without any cost repercussions it won't alter its ways.

The crew were forced to work extra hard and put in the unfortunate situation of having to improvise and disappoint customers through no fault of theirs. You got a substandard offering from what many would already call substandard, so the only winners here are BA. I would imagine the crew woild encourage a complaint while complimenting their efforts.

On a recent flight I had where the crew did a fantastic job despite being short staffed and short loaded on food, they suggested complaining as its the only way things would change. To be fair one cc also said they wished senior management had been on the flight to witness what they have to deal with in the real world!

VSLover

of course one should complain. this has nothing to do with crew when there is insufficient catering but with the ops side of BA that results in the normally pathetic first bfast offering after night stops or the regular occurrence of running out of options let alone meals.

PUCCI GALORE

That has been said by crew since time immemorial. You should complain - the problem is that we live in a compensation culture where everyone complains about anything. The also expect to be cash compensated for all and everything. Thus the Customer Relations people are swamped, That is not an excuse for bad service but this is not what you expect and when you cater for exact numbers this is what happens. I'd love to know if they were flogging off upgrades as this can completely change things.

UKTraveller4Fun

That is very fair and I do agree the culture now limits the effect of complaints. I am all for understanding when things go wrong outside of someone's control. Crew being sick at an outstation and thus short staffed, it happens and that's life.
But simply not delivering what is promised like a meal in Club isn't acceptable, but if BA proactively reached out to all people on that flight offering avios I would say that's fair, even if the amount undervalued things because at least it is proactively accepting some responsibility.
Its the fact that they really do seem to attempt to run on a shoestring and not care that it means they knowingly will be not offering what they advertise on a regular basis and just how demoralising thatt must be for the crew. That I have an issue with and feel should generate a complaint everytime.