Hearing more of "No BoB Catered" on Short(er) flights
 

As 1K who files plenty of regional flights and short hauls, I've seen a trend over the last month of being told more often that they don't have any snacks being offered, and flight attendants providing the absolute bare minimal service (if they leave their seat).

Couple routes:
-Flew LAX-SFO - was told since the flight was "so short" - no snacks when I asked for anything (gummy bears, chocolate pretzels, snack box). Didn't want to argue on what a "short" flight really is.
-ORD-GRR - Flight attendant didn't even serve water or bother to get up; no announcement;
-ORD-YYZ - No snacks
-GRR-IAH (almost 3 hours in an e145) - no snacks
-IAH-QRO - Was told no snacks, but was given a drink.

Before all this, I flew ORD-AZO (even shorter then GRR) and the FA, bless her, did a full beverage service and got me a snack.That flight was maybe 25 minutes. ORD-FNT as well, I've never had issues getting a snack.

Does anyone know if flights are being stocked less? I don't want to say FA's are being lazy, but it sure seems like on a lot of these shorter routes I've been on, the service is about as minimal as possible (mainly Air Wisconin flights it seems). I know the snacks aren't much, but they do have some pretty nice options when they are available, and I think it's a good benefit for being 1K.

Yes, I have noticed it. Many times I have been told no snacks on UAX planes.

Additionally, I just posted in the Let's Eat thread, that the snack basket on a CR7 this week offered only economy pretzels, economy stroopwaffle, or the small bag of dried fruit mix. No chips, no bananas, no cookies, etc. From my view of the cart, looked like it was stocked that way by catering.

There have been many reports scattered over several threads about a general lowering of inventory boarded on planes. A couple weeks ago, my first 3 liquor drink choices were out. FA actually pulled the tray out of the cart to show me what was left to pick from.

I would wager this is another wide-spread cost cutting move.

Interesting experiences. Are you flying in F or E/E+? On LAX-SFO/SFO-LAX they do not cater snack boxes, I have asked many many times going as far back as 2016. Was never able to get one then, don't expect to be able to get one now (I haven't asked in the past year though).

My experiences this month:
LAX - SFO / SFO - LAX in F; Snack basket & drinks (water, etc)
ORD - YYZ in F; Snack basket & drinks (water, etc).

*Snack basket = normal assortment of cookies, bananas, chips, biscoti, etc.

I got 'short flight — no snack box' on YUL-EWR. Not sure if that's normal. I had just gotten one on BTV-IAD, which is only 100mi longer.

These were e/e+ experiences...where sometimes the snack options are better then the snack choices in F. I've also gone about 1/10 on asking for the IPA beers.

I should clarify the stroopwaffles have usually been available, I'm referring to the bigger items.

In LAX/SFO in E/E+, this is nothing new. Since I've started flying UA in 2015, there has never been snack boxes offered or even available if I requested. They are not catered on the short flights.
I can't say the same for ORD-YYZ as I've never asked on that flight. However, if you read the snack offerings it says "For Flights scheduled for over 1.5 hours?"
LAX/SFO is not. ORD-YYZ might just be by a minute?
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...nomy/menu.aspx

I don't fly ORD-YYZ to know if something has changed. But in my opinion, for LAX-SFO, nothing has changed. its "too short" a flight.

So this thread should really be titled no buy on board snacks available, they're usually not catered for anything less than 1.5 hrs block time. LAX-SFO should never have it, if they do its leftover from a different flight

The BoB snack are only available on flights of 1.5 hours or longer. There has been a time limit on BoB availability for a long time. The more substantial in economy items require flights of 3 hours or more.

I had plenty of luck going back a month on some of the very small regional flights like ORD-AZO and ORD-FNT. Maybe it was just luck and not the norm, or from a previous flight then.

I've had them on 1.25 hour flights too, its probably leftovers from other hops that were longer. Either way I usually ask since they're free for me.

What you link to shows:
Bistro on board (sandwiches, hot items, etc) - 3.5 hours
Snack shop (boxes) - 1.5 hours

Then "snacks", which don't have a time specified. That's what I'm referring to - gummy bears, pretzels, potato chips.

Read it again. "From savory to sweet, enjoy a classic a la carte option or choose one of our snackboxes, which include several small bites.".

Gummy bears, pretzels, potato chips are 'a la carte option'. Scheduled flight time of over 1.5 hours.

Thanks for highlighting the threshold. I had been wondering about it, and that fits my experiences.

edit: actually after more poking around my experiences don't exactly fit the 1.5hr block time threshold, e.g., yul-ewr was blocked at 1.7hrs, and I had lax-sfo blocked at 1.6hrs, but it's somewhere around there.

I believe the BoB threshold lengths, like the Polaris pyjama lengths, are measured by average stage length over some time period. For example, LAX<>SFO goes as short as 1h11m and as long as 1h45m, so it makes sense to average it to <90min on UA's part (or at least is vaguely consistent, given they clearly can't be serving BoB on the 1:35 flights and not the 1:25 flights).

I don't disagree with your observation, although like the pyjamas, it has prompted me to wonder why they don't just use a mileage chart to determine PJ provisioning or BoB / snacks. Mileage is the underlying variable in the stage length, so attempting to average the variance out of it and using that as the deciding factor is oddly opaque. But perhaps that's what they want. :p

Most likely because your average customer doesn't know/care about how many miles their flight is and they want an easy way to determine if their flight has BoB or not.

Not one to really consume catered items -drinks or food- on these short flights, it was still a bit disappointing to hear the FA say UA won't cater the "very short flights" (whatever that means) after April 1.
It is a rumor only at this point:

[Rumor] FA says "No catering on short flights" beginning April 1, 2018

One (or two) more 1K benefit(s) into the wind.

Perhaps that is the biggest reason? I wonder if the only boxes that were being used were by 1Ks getting them free and people weren't actually buying them. Otherwise seems strange to not try to sell more of a product.

The 1K items are popular sellers onboard as well. Catering has recently been changed to reflect the popularity of the Tapas box, for example. It has nothing to do with eroding 1K benefits

On mainline, there are only three "levels" of catering - Stroopwaffels/Pretzel Mix are always boarded. Snackboxes and chips, gummy bears, chocolate preztels, etc, are all part of the "snack shop" which are boarded on one cart, and are boarded for any routes scheduled over 1.5 hours. BoB is boarded on a second cart, if scheduled flight times and departure times reflect.

The word "Snacks" at the bottom is underneath the "Snack Shop" header.

I complained to 1KVoice about this back in January (after not having any snacks loaded on a YYZ-ORD flight). The flight is scheduled for longer than 90 minutes, so as per their published schedule it should have had snacks. Here was their reply:

I wrote back and sent them the link to their website where it said 90 minutes and NOT two hours. They wrote back and said they would investigate the discrepancy, but never got back to me. So perhaps the policy has been changed to a two hour flight minimum - they just haven't bothered to publicly announce it!


EDIT: I just checked and the page now does say 2 hours! https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...my/dining.aspx . It definitely didn't say that when I flew in January!

FWIW that link (https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...my/dining.aspx) saying 3.5hrs / 2hrs looks older and is less specific than the other link (https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...nomy/menu.aspx) saying 3hrs / 1.5hrs, which also seems closer to my experience. I agree it would be best if they were consistent with what they publish, though.

Did an IAD-RIC in F... no PDB, no drinks at all... coach got pretzels, but no drinks.

Talk about cheap.