dholloway

I recently returned from Boston on business. As usual, it was WorldTraveller. Something that never happened to me happened to me.

BA ran out of their chicken main, and were serving only beef. Among other things, beef is something I never ever eat. I wasn't the only person by far in the cabin who came up short.

Depending on where passengers were sitting in the main cabin, they were offered (or not) a main from ClubWorld.

I was one of those who wasn't. My empty clear-blue plastic tray remained empty throughout my non-dinner. When I asked the FA if anything non-beef was found on the airplane, she said no.

It is hard to believe that ClubWorld would run out of food.

Out of curiosity, how would you handle a situation like this? It's not high blood pressure critical and I'm not fuming (after all, I was offered something, but something I chose not to eat), but I do think that the function of dinner, and not its form, should be observed.

I've flown ClubWorld many many times, and I do know the difference in ticket price is not completely because the food is that much better. Believe me!

Any thoughts?

AC*SE

Not surprised they ran out of food in J. They do not load a complete set of entrées for every passenger, they overload slightly, to minimize the likelihood that they will run out of something, without wasting too many.

For a load of, say, 60 J class passengers, they would likely have about 70-80 meals, leaving only 10 to 20 left over to distribute in Y.

My feeling is generally, if I am not sure I will want to eat what is going to be on offer, I will book a special meal. If I don't book a special meal, I will eat, or not, whatever is put in front of me.

PAUL PALMER

In fairness, they did not run out of meals, they ran out of choice. That can be annoying, but that happens, particularly in the main cabin. Club World will have offered only the surplus choices that their passenger did not eat or want. I do not know whether they carry many spare meals, but the sheer proportion of Club World to World Traveller means that they are bound to run out. That can happen in Premium Cabins also, I fear.

With hindsight, maybe the crew were wrong to offer any meals from Club World, because you will always get problems. Given the sheer numbers, they were bound to disappoint someone.

Maybe your best bet is to order a special meal in future.

Shareholder

Under the current circumstances relating to the situation via a vis beef in the UK and the EEC, it is no doubt most people in the back of the plane selected chicken and they ran out of the alternative by the time the FAs reached you. However, as others have noted already, if you have serious dietary restrictions — vegetarian or vegan, kosher of muslim, lacto etc. — this should have been noted at the time of booking and a special meal ordered. I cannot conceive of how eating one airline beef meal that happens to be beef is not going to kill you or anyone else on the plane, since hoof and mouth is not contageous to humans, and we have long gotten over the other scares related to British beef. Don't blame BA. They planned their menus months in advance and had no idea of the current scare. It is always clear that a choice is offered when available, but often the choice vanishes through the meal service. That's a fact of flying. Margins are too tight to overload meals, even at $10 a meal, as was done in the past. Sorry this happened, but you can't blame BA. It's part of air travel, and it even happens in Club that they run out of a main course selection.