So what happens to the food, ice-cream, left over from the flight?

Pennies count ! Worked for a large auto mfg. The VIN ( unique id) is visible under the windshield lower left corner. It is a black color attached to a black or dark dash, no light there. When I commented it would take less than a penny to have it in white for ease of reading, was told to multiply said penny by X millions of vehicles per year.
Where does one draw the line at allowing theft to "increase" morale ? Remember, unlike USA F/A s are still prestigious jobs.

Let's suppose CX suffers HK$50 leakage per flight. At 6000 flights per month, that's HK$3.6M lost per year. Under CX's current operating environment, where they're not swimming in consistent profits, I could see how they might go after this. I doubt they would be this extreme over a couple pots of ice cream only.

Alcohols and high value items gets reloaded onto other flights. Same for unopened soft drinks and water if they are in their original stowage.

Everything else go to land fill or incinerators, even for unused non-perishables such as tea bags. Cheaper to reassemble a new standard unit than to unpack and reassemble. It is also unhygienic to load opened packets onto new flights not knowing what happened to them previously. Food safety regulations also prohibits re-chilling perishables and thawed frozen food (aka all meals and fresh food items). Ice cream would have melted by landing, dry ice don't last that long.

Once a year, they do a PR photoshoot of off duty staff sorting these items for charities though.

I personally think it's reasonable for crew to take bread roll, croissants and yogurt cups to eat on the way home, which are destined for the landfill anyways. The ones that were suspended this time were allegedly caught with these otherwise 0 value items. CX just comes across as incredibly stingy and pathetic.

oh my, that's the CEO's end of year bonus, we can't loose that after all he's done for the company...gasp. That's all the money saved from not serving garlic bread, salt and pepper shakers in JCL, cheaper lounge contractor and business standard first class food.

USA FAs are better paid, have better job protection and unions that actually have the power to fight back against management. What part of being a CX FA is prestigious in this day and age? Most university grads only fly a few years to see the world then get a cushy HK government office job for a lot more pay and better life. It's a win-win though, CX can get crew on cheap contracts who stay low on the pay scale, grads get 'work experience' for a few years before moving on, male customers continue to live under the illusion that FA's sole purpose is to be young, pretty and be their eye candy.

That's less that the salary of one senior captain. If they feel that's worth making a fuss about publically then their PR people are completely screwed up.

Is it not the passengers who steal the most? Plates, cutlery, pillows etc all taken as a souvenir of the flight?

I don't disagree. The problem is, as CX alleges, FAs are taking more than these.

And don't forget - before the raid, CX has, per the media, issued an internal memo aka ultimatum about this practice just weeks ago.

So yes - it is bad to let good food into waste. But the FAs literally asked for the troubles.

You can't really say they are not warned.

Big issue is, CCs' get tempted bringing the "sold out" message to the customers, just to be able to take home the goodies themselves. It's a downhill sliding situation. Some 40 years ago, I worked in a huge restaurant, and as serving staff, we did the same. Nothing new under the sun, so to say.

Regarding costs: Some 10 years ago, I made an average profit per leg calculation for Easyjet: A whopping USD 20. :eek:
LH would be some more, though not that much. So, think about that, when judging about these "taking home" actions.

This.

Not suggesting CX FAs or FAs in general are more prone to this than others, but I've seen this happen in various service industries, where employees are potentially incentivized by withholding something from customers (especially when it's complimentary) to benefit themselves. In my view, it's best to eliminate this potential conflict of interest with a zero tolerance policy and mandating anything perishable unused by pax are thrown away as waste.

Far as making FAs unhappy, anyone who quits because of the losing of this perk should, since, obviously, this profession isn't really for them. And, as to the environmental concerns (not wasting stuff) I'm sure the...ah...Earth can survive.

the only thing that seems to have sold out is the 60 cup noodles that they would let flow into J and F cabin.
I've never had "Sorry we have run out of OJ or 1.5L Bottle Water". Once in a while the 330ml evian ran out.

Except for caviar, what has ever ran out on the hundreds/thousands of flight we have taken?

Yes, but bean counters can be overzealous sometimes and forget the bigger picture.

i am not entirely sure if it is of noone concerns if cx take it this way. CX does not profit more (hence tax money) by trashing them, there will be a higher stress in the dump, HK needs to look for alternative ways to take the *foodstuff* when many in HK run low on foodstuff in different interpretations.

for each kg of trash from each flight (out of 227.8 flights per day avg in feb(FYI its 226.5 in jan)), it would be 0.2tonne in the junk yard every day for 1 kg in all flights. and we are talking about 100skg in 50ish LH flights before fuel. x365.

Or alternatively, i think the Earth can survive better with less human beings.

Did CX recently downsize even the Evian water to 330mL (to cut costs)? I have always received 500mL in the past.