MH calls this... fruit?!
 

Taking HKG-KUL on MH business class recently, breakfast was served that included what was supposed to be a bowl of fruit.

But in the bowl were 4 teensy weensy rather stale looking cubes of watermelon, honeydew, pineapple and dragon fruit. I kid you not - each cube was only 2 cm width X 2 cm length X 2 cm height! Has MH gone truly crazy with cost cutting?

When shown to the stewardess and asked whether these were really "a bowl of fruit" or merely 4 cubes of fruit garnishes? Candidly she too felt embarrassed and was apologetic but clearly even she felt what was served could never be described as fruit to be served with an in flight meal!

Comparing to SQ and their big fruit basket where passengers can pick from a good selection, what MH served truly was embarrassing.

She offered to note down as customer complaint and she even took a copy of my business card but... as with everything to do with MH, I would either get no response or at best a "thank you for your feedback" cut and paste response.

Yepper - MH surely has dropped the ball here. I also like the CX fruit basket.

Apples to Oranges...

You cannot compare MH to SQ.

Best you stick with SQ then, shall we?

On our local route Adelaide to KUL/SIN the choice is pretty clear:

SQ has pretty robot ladies on older A330 angle business class seat with a fresh basket of fruit.

MH has "real" staff (cranky or friendly) on newer A330 with lie flat business class seats with Satays.

At least in this case, MH is the far superior product. SQ really needs to update their Adelaide product and I am afraid a basket of fruit will not be sufficient investment.

Apples to Oranges indeed.

MH J return Ex SIN can be had for SGD 1,000
CX and SQ between SGD 1,500 and 1,700

The SGD 500 (USD 350) can buy you a lot of fruit.

Ex KUL prices seem even more extreme.

The bowl contains a few chunks of fruit, melon, pineapple, orange and sometimes a grape. You get what you pay for. You expected something else.. that's not the airlines fault.. They offered fruit, they gave you fruit...

Globalist

What you described sounds exactly like a bowl of fruit, which is what I find to be the least inspiring part of any inflight meal.

The dramatic thread title made it sound like MH substituted it for jelly and tried to pass it off as fruit.

QR J fares are low but service levels are not. Last I checked MH is still advertised as a full service airline, don't think airfares are a criteria here, its the lack of "attention" to detail or as they say in these parts "simply" do attitude, if they cant afford the fruit they should just cut it out.

If you felt so appalled by the fruit, a photo would really help to see how much disservice you got.

Plus, you have many choices, so why stick with MH?
Eat better fruit or cut 3 hours from a connecting flight...
Eat all the fruit you want in the CX lounges at HKG or wait for an in-flight fruit bowl from MH....
Choices abound....

With a handle as OPs easy to understand the importance placed on fruit.
Having said that these pictures surely tell a different story from 2014.

http://www.airlineratings.com/news/4...nd-food-review

And then you bunch would whine about the lack of fruit. Generally hard to please. Airfare high also cannot. Less fruits for lower airfare also cannot. No fruits also cannot.

As mentioned by myself and other posters before, if you are generally so critical of MH I don't understand why you keep sitting it. Your constant bashing of MH is becoming annoying, to say the least, and it doesn't add anything to any conversation at all. If you're sitting it for the fare, you have really no right to complain about shortcomings in other areas. Perhaps a private jet with personal Butler service will suffice for your exquisite taste - or maybe just SQ-style service - I don't know - but - if you don't even have the intention of ponying up the money, you don't have the moral high ground to make such demands. You know exactly what to expect from MH.

They definitely didn't look like the freshly cut melon slices with luscious strawberry as shown in the pic!

I didn't manage to take a pic, in retrospect it would've made a stark comparison. But for those that crave a mental picture... imagine 2 cm x 2 cm x 2 cm cubes of slightly exposed nearing to stale supposed fruit cubes.

Did you paid anything close to what SQ askes for HKG-SIN(-KUL) for that flight? Or was it a fracture of that? MH is the airline from a - let's say it nice - developing country - SQ the one from one of the most developed.

You can't compare their airlines. Once is putting up joke "saving" methods like no alcoholic drinks in regional business class, the other one is spoiling you in their product. One is premium, one is.. umm.. member of "one world"..

I don't get this. The OP opens a new thread on how bad MH is almost every other week. If you really hate them that much,just don't fly with them. It's just an airline.

The passenger was promised fruit and the passenger got fruit.

The service is still full service, it is the expectation of the passenger that the crew would come with a fruit basket, there is no basis for that expectation.

Airfares are a good indicator what you get for your money.

Globalist

For breakfast, fruit is served as a fruit salad. For after meal services, fruit is presented in a fruit basket (at least on SQ. Don't know if it's served like this on MH). It has never been my concern as to what fruit is served. OP was on a breakfast flight and he got a few pieces of nicely cubed fruit. I wouldn't call it stingy but perhaps that is the way the catering was done in HK. Have you seen how teeny weeny the fruit is cut in those Del Monte tins?

On a recent domestic flight, there were ample sizes of fruit in the bowl for breakfast. So I think it has more to do with catering from certain ports rather than MH 'cutting back'.