VH-RMD

I would be unhappy, I have no status and pay the $ to fly J (until next month)...

justin_krusty

This has come up before, about 2 years ago. I couldn't find the thread so it may have been on AFF. Anyway Dave Noble pointed out (I disagreed with him at the time, but have since come around to his way of thinking) that to be truly fair, pax should be asked by fare class (flex to non-flex), then redemptions/awards, then op-ups, then staff. At each stage, pax sub-ranked by status.

So yes it can get rather complicated if one wants to be totally fair about it. I think what is more important is:
1) sufficient catering loaded
2) choice allocation done discretely and out of sight

dddc

Having recently had the pleasure of flying QF again for the first time around 8 years, this time on a staff travel companion ticket, I can confirm staff do get left to the end, but it does seem to depend on the flight and probably how well catered the flight was.

I did 6 sectors, 4 international and 2 domestic and it was only the dinner domestic flight I was left till last. A little bit conspicuous in 1A! The FA was very good about it, serving the other side first, then 1C, then saying to me "Mr dddc, I'll be right back to you if that's ok". Well handled. (and obviously I was not going to complain!). I ended up having a choice as it was. Which was good as I didn't want the fish option! The other domestic was a breakfast flight so they seemed to have plenty of everything.

The international flights were unsocial ones and I think on the out bound there was only about 12 people in the lower J cabin. There didn't seem to be an issue. On the inbound it was slightly more crowded and I had been asked to move from the upper cabin after settling in for a medical pax so the definately knew I was on staff travel. I had the bulkhead centre section aisle seat and it was better than upper deck seat as I didn't have me feet wedged in the back of the seat infront! Each meal service this time I said any of the mains, bar the fish. The FA there adivised to take the local port dish as they often don't do western dishes well!

On the subject of the food, the dinner domestic flight (BNE-MEL) had the tastiest meal of the 6 sectors. When I was flying back regularly I used to look forward to my QF sectors for the food (and the BA sectors for the new flat bed!). I don't know that as I've gotten older my palate has changed, but I didn't rate the Neil Perry/Rockpool menus. Chicken Schnitzel was a whole breast crumbed not a thin slice. It was fine, but not what I was expecting. The beef out of Australia was good. But the chicken in sause on the domestic leg was better. More satisfying.

Yes, I do like my airline food! As soon as airlinemeals.net comes back to life you'll see some of these there!!

Also, I would agree that for the FA's to go around and take orders before serving would be the best way to avoid situations. No one needs to know if there was or wasn't a dish left that way.

Dave Noble

Indeed it would get complicated and however it was done would still leave some unhappy customers. I think that it should be done on a FCFS method like, say, AA which I think is a lot better than their hopping around the cabin taking orders on status etc

Dave

Kiwi Flyer

Yes that is how it works on AA, but UA for one does things differently. They do a zig-zag around the cabin taking orders according to status (of course to them all UA status outranks any other *A status ). Very painful to watch and experience.

Kiwi Flyer

The BTC system is brilliant, but unfortunately not available on all flights (some origins do not have it). At one stage SQ was trying to roll it out at all stations, but gave up due to quality issues.

astonmartinv8

If I didn't live here, I would simply never fly QF again if the service to me was differentiated in J on the basis of status. I am one of those with no QF status who pays J out of his own pocket.

It is bad enough that the QF "monolopoly" leads to high prices for J (although I trust that may soon change).

Perhaps the logical response to a complaint on board would be...

"No sorry, in order to make as much profit as possible out of your $3200 PER-SYD return, we have optimised the meals we put on board to minimise wastage and cost to us. Because of this we are offering the customers who fly with us most first choice as we don't want to upest them. As you don't fly with us much, we don't care if you get a substandard service and don't come back."

What people will put up with eh? Pay for J, get Y? Pay for J and get told to to walk? Pay for something and get something less? Hmmm.

Traveloguy

Completely agree. The AA solution is actually very simple and elegant and much easier to explain to passengers should they not get their meal choice.

lokijuh

And in turn favours pax who book early and aware of FEBO and allocate a seat accordingly. You can't please everyone.

I think it is only right that QF look after their best customers, it happens all across the business world - small and large, that higher value customers are looked after better than lower value ones. So it might upset a few one off pax - who may or maynot come back, but what about upsetting the person who has flown you weekly for a year??

I've never seen this happen on QF, but it is the norm on SQ and it is done with tact and subtlety and I have no problems with it. No different to the WP slumming it in whY getting some extra treatment.

Kremmen

Not the whole story. Sometimes they do that. I find it quite fun to watch. It's interesting to see where I am in the pecking order on particular routes.

However, they often (and I believe are supposed to) go to everyone in an arbitrary order, then do the ranking part out of sight. Apart from the issue of disclosing status to everyone, there's a huge advantage to this over all the other methods: Some people don't care! If they get an "either this or that" or an "I don't mind" from some of their high-priority customers, they'll almost never disappoint anyone. If they take orders and/or start serving in status order, the decision has to be made before they know what they might run short of.

og

A year or so ago, UA asked everyone in the C cabin "please give me your first preference and your second preference". As said above, the FAs then sorted it all out in the galley. Of course, it would have been better if they loaded a good supply of meals rather than "just enough". But then again, there was no wastage (and they had full metal cutlery).

Himeno

How do the FAs know which pax have which status?

og

Easy - they have a print-out of all passengers which shows seat number and airline status. This is usually kept in the galley and you might see it when you are wandering around the cabin.

Himeno

I don't wander around the cabin. In my last 30 flights, I've left my seat during the flight a total of 3 times.

Can't say I noticed any difference between when I had nothing and when I had sliver.

NM

Then you may notice the CSM carrying the manifest around when making a personal welcome to high status FF members. They will often glance at the manifest and then address the passenger by name (which they have just read off the list).