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BA 'upgrading' meals on Shorthaul flights to Not Free

 Poster: A snowHead
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I've just had an email from BA telling me that from 11 Jan they will be 'upgrading' the in-flight catering on shorthaul flights to a range provided by M&S that you will need to buy on board using a credit card (not cash) or Avios.

They describe the previous service as 'complimentary' rather than included, which I take as some weasel words to deflect any demands for a price reduction..

Quote:

Thank you for booking your flight with British Airways. We're writing to let you know about some key changes that are taking place to our on-board catering.

From 11 January, we're upgrading our food offering on all short haul flights to and from London Heathrow and London Gatwick to a new buy-on-board menu range. Partnering with Marks & Spencer, another great British brand, you will be able to buy from their delicious and seasonally inspired menu, 'M&S on board', which will replace the complimentary service currently provided in our Euro Traveller cabins, including UK domestic flights.

With a variety of M&S food, including vegetarian and healthy fresh options, you'll now be able to enjoy the flavours you love from this British high street favourite while in the air. Products such as Spiced Chicken Salad with Quinoa and Rice, and Aberdeen Angus Beef and Red Onion Chutney Bloomer are just some of the tasty highlights you can look forward to, along with a wide selection of popular savoury snacks and sweet treats.

What's more, Executive Club Members will now have the option to spend their Avios on board. With all food on the menu priced at under £5, and all of your favourite branded wines, spirits and soft drinks also available to buy, payment using Avios or via a debit or credit card, will be quick and easy.

Please note, cash payments will not be accepted, so if you are travelling in a group, please let the rest of your party know about this change.

From summer 2017, 'M&S on board' will also be available to purchase on flights to and from London City and London Stansted. For any bookings you have in Club Europe or on long haul flights, the existing full complimentary food offering will continue to be served.

We look forward to welcoming you on board and unveiling our new men
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Quote:

We look forward to welcoming you on board and unveiling our new men

They must be recruiting stewards from the Chippendales wink

On a serious note I suppose this was inevitable....
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
This just mentions food

Is the beer still complimentary?
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@mikeholmes25
Sorry...
Quote:

all of your favourite branded wines, spirits and soft drinks also available to buy


Sad Sad

Hang on! No mention of beer at all!!!
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Well, teaches me to read the whole thing before posting!

Luckily I fly BA on the 6th & 8th of Jan, so get the last of the free stuff

Then for Zurich I'm on Swiss, so can smugly enjoy my free beer, cheese sandwich and complimentary ski carriage! I can see demand for Swiss rocketing, as what really separates BA from easyJet etc now in economy class, apart from a more expensive ticket and obviously less gaudy planes
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Tempted to book the last flight in on the 10th Jan, in case there's the chance of a lock-in Toofy Grin
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http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/food-and-drink/short-haul-economy-dining

Which utter twit (minus the 'w') in their marketing department thought it was a good idea to advertise moving from a complimentary service to a pay service for pre-packaged sarnies is considered an "upgrade". Honestly it shows nothing but contempt.

Oddly enough a pre-packed sandwich is a still a pre-packed sandwich and is ultimately naff whether or not it's got M&S branding on it. It'll still ultimately be largely disappointing. I certainly won't be spending circa a fiver on one. Ever. Nor 4 quid for a can of underchilled beer in an undersized plastic cup.

At least when it was complimentary with a g&t, a wine or a beer you felt there was some level of on board service differentiation vs flying via budget airline.
BA - clearly striving to sink to a new nadir in joining the the world of fully fledged no frills airlines ! Well done to their branding and marketing teams. Well done.


I wonder where they stand with customers who booked prior to the announcement, where complimentary on board food and drink was clearly advertised as part of their offering, but are now travelling after the changes.
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Read about this in the Guardian this morning. You can imagine the comments! Laughing Biggest gripe is the "due to popular demand" crap. They reckon we've all been crying out to pay for a snack and a drink. Who knew?

We and, I think, a lot of others have already booked BA for the BB and I am cross that I won't get my usual free G&T. Haven't got an email, though Puzzled
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Gazzza wrote:
I wonder where they stand with customers who booked prior to the announcement, where complimentary on board food and drink was clearly advertised as part of their offering, but are now travelling after the changes.


They stand just fine - the food and drink are complimentary so not part of the service you book and pay for.


The free hot breakfast on my Monday morning flights from City to Edinburgh will be missed though Sad
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[quote="Mjit"]
Gazzza wrote:

The free hot breakfast on my Monday morning flights from City to Edinburgh will be missed though Sad


Is that not a domestic flight, rather than a shorthaul? It's been a long time since I flew to Scotland with BA but I vaguely recall that the cabin definitions are different, I think they might even have classed it all as business.
I do remember having breakfast before I left the house, then having a second breakfast at the airport before being surprised with a third breakfast on the plane.
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maggi wrote:
We and, I think, a lot of others have already booked BA for the BB and I am cross that I won't get my usual free G&T.


Glad I used my Avios points to be on the other side of the curtain for the BB so will still get the free stuff!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
The first sign of BA's ongoing move downmarket was the removal of Business class seats a few years back, on short haul flights. They moved from a 5 abreast 2 and 3 format seats, which had better leg from and were wider, to exactly the same 6 seat 3 and 3 format as economy, but with the middle seat blocked with a table.

I guess this made it easier to reduce/expand Business class, with minimal effort between flights.

I think BA learnt their marketing from from NatWest, who a couple of years back posted a notice on the branch door stating that "For your convenience this branch will now close at 13:00 on Saturdays instead of 16:00"........


Last edited by And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports. on Thu 29-09-16 12:07; edited 1 time in total
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I want to know how I can add a list of all of my favourite branded wines, spirits and soft drinks to my booking. I presume they don't have that information already.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Mjit wrote:
They stand just fine - the food and drink are complimentary so not part of the service you book and pay for.(



I'm not sure one can widely advertise a service that includes complimentary food and drink, accept peoples payments and bookings on that basis, thus contracting, then not deliver the complimentary food and drink that was offered at the time of booking.

Customers have booked and paid for a ticket that was said to include complimentary food and drink at the time of booking, so should receive the said complimentary food and drink.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Actually I wonder when they started removing references to the complimentary food from the website. The Telegraph article said they started this move back in April this year.
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Re marketing google Bill Hicks and marketing and I think all your questions will be answered.

G
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Maybe it's an 'upgrade' because the food might actually taste ok now, unlike before?
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Sounds like a good idea. I hate the smell of that stuff as they re-heat it. I'd not want to actually *eat* it, so not paying for it is a great idea. I don't much like BA, but I like this.
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To be honest, I've just never understood the whole deal with food on short haul flights.

Whatever they offer you, it's going to be poor quality, just by the nature of the fact you are 30,000 feet up in the air in a tin can.

So I just eat a good, healthy breakfast at home, and then have lunch on arrival etc. And/or it's easy to pick something tasty up from Pret or such like in the airport.

The bottom line is the bottom line. When customers are surveyed, they all say they want a nice meal and are prepared to pay for that in the ticket price.

But when it come to actuall booking time, 99% of us enter our trip details in SkyScanner, and then reverse sort by price. Then as long as the airport and times are OK, we pick the lowest price.

That's the reality the airlines have to live with.
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PeDaSp wrote:
To be honest, I've just never understood the whole deal with food on short haul flights.


I certainly have understood. I've had journeys where the only chance to eat was on the plane. Especially when doing a series of flights with barely time to do all the connecting hassle, let alone eat at the airport. Even when not doing that I can find myself pushed for time after a long drive to the airport. It's nice to know there will be reasonable food on the plane.

Quote:

But when it come to actuall booking time, 99% of us enter our trip details in SkyScanner, and then reverse sort by price. Then as long as the airport and times are OK, we pick the lowest price......


I also consider the airline. And for short haul to Europe on my last two trips I chose BA Business. Mind you I don't travel so much these days, so it doesn't seem too expensive to be comfortable when I do.
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miranda wrote:
Maybe it's an 'upgrade' because the food might actually taste ok now, unlike before?


Fat chance. It'll still be a naff pre-packed sandwich. There's a limit to how good they can taste. I expect it's still going to be an industrial mass produced packaged product that's been through an extensive supply chain network, slung around trucks and warehouses for a day or two, and ultimately lobbed on a trolley cart for service, and will have been stored and over chilled over it's sad little lifecycle. ie. Exactly as it probably was before. Just that now it'll have M&S branding on it and they, I assume, will simply contract production to one of their own suppliers. I doubt it will taste or be any better than the offering before in the slightest.

It might just have a tarted up description, but at the end of the day a pre-packed sandwich has it's limitations - it's still a pre-packed sandwich Happy You'll just be paying a tenner for a sarny and a g&t whereas before it was free. The only improvement might be there'll probably be a choice of naff pre-packed sandwich or maybe, according the BA menu, some fruit that was equally probably chopped up and pre-packaged several days ago too. I'd rather have the old free wrap or sandwich (mediocre as it was) and a free drink, than pay for a bigger selection of similarly mediorcre sandwiches and pay for the same drink, thanks.

Or the old free afternoon tea clotted cream and jam scone with the Rodda's clotted cream pots. I used to quite enjoy that on an afternoon short haul. Very Happy


philwig wrote:
Sounds like a good idea. I hate the smell of that stuff as they re-heat it. I'd not want to actually *eat* it, so not paying for it is a great idea.


I know what you mean I never particularly like the smell of re-heating airline food. However all BA economy short haul in destination bands 1-3, which pretty much covers all European ski destinations, was all cold anyway so you'd not be smelling it reheating. So you'd typically get a filled croissant, a filled wrap, or a scone/jam/cream, depending on times of day and with free drinks of course (beer, wine, spirits, soft drink, juice, coffee/tea, etc).
You'll soon be able to get the same with their "upgraded menu", but you'll now pay for the privilege. ....Do you honestly think will reduce ticket prices by an equivalent amount of it no longer being included. I somehow think not!


Oh well, on the plus side I made the most of the first pass of the long haul drinks trolley last week Toofy Grin
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I'm not so fussed about the food. You can take your own on board. I hate paying for water on principle, whether on the aircraft or just airside and in both, it's vastly overpriced compared to a normal supermarket. Of course, if you want a wine or G&T, you don't even have that choice.

I do feel miffed that the rules have changed since I booked, though. They should give us a voucher for one drink and one sarnie as a goodwill gesture.
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PeDaSp wrote:
To be honest, I've just never understood the whole deal with food on short haul flights.

Whatever they offer you, it's going to be poor quality, just by the nature of the fact you are 30,000 feet up in the air in a tin can.

So I just eat a good, healthy breakfast at home, and then have lunch on arrival etc. And/or it's easy to pick something tasty up from Pret or such like in the airport.

The bottom line is the bottom line. When customers are surveyed, they all say they want a nice meal and are prepared to pay for that in the ticket price.

But when it come to actuall booking time, 99% of us enter our trip details in SkyScanner, and then reverse sort by price. Then as long as the airport and times are OK, we pick the lowest price.

That's the reality the airlines have to live with.


Indeed, although I typically used to use BA over budget airlines even if they were a litttle more unless the differential was significant because they did have some differentiator over the no-frills (namely free food/drink and the ability to use luggage allowance for snowboard/ski bag). To the extent that in the last 10 years I've only veered away from BA on ski trips on two occasions.

The "something tasty" you pay for from Pret in the airport will no doubt similarly have come from a similar factory and through a similar supply chain as the previous free BA offering did.

Don't feel too sorry for them. They seemed to do ok even when they did offer the free mediocre sandwich and free drinks on board - from the summary of the 2015 annual review:

Quote:
Management review
BA has made a pre-exceptional operating profit of £1,264 million in 2015 (2014: £975 million), which is a significant achievement, building upon the solid
foundations set in the previous year.
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@Gazzza, I'm fairly sure that Pret make stuff daily, at least that is what they claim, and I doubt they would have got away with it for so long if they didn't.

To my mind, no sandwich worth eating will have been made the day before, let alone sold/served with a use by date a week in the future. I stopped eating BA economy sandwiches after reading the non foodstuff ingredients list.

It can also easily be argued that if you can't survive for a couple of hours without food or particularly alcohol, you have bigger issues Toofy Grin


Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Thu 29-09-16 17:38; edited 1 time in total
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To me, Pret sandwiches clearly taste a lot better than the cold 'free' meal on a BA flight, including what they offered in business.
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I've already had a fight with them about a corporately booked flight at late extortionate fare where they assigned me the very worst seat on the plane then charged me to select any other on check in. I described it as a hostage fee which got me a warning from the on-board staff about trigger words Embarassed

Seems to me they are enthusiastically engaged in a race to the bottom including no boarding by row etc etc.
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miranda wrote:
To me, Pret sandwiches clearly taste a lot better than the cold 'free' meal on a BA flight, including what they offered in business.


I find the food in business fine, just not enough of it - just have to compensate with the alcohol Embarassed Embarassed Toofy Grin (or maybe the alcohol compensates for the poor food Happy )
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Gazzza wrote:



I wonder where they stand with customers who booked prior to the announcement, where complimentary on board food and drink was clearly advertised as part of their offering, but are now travelling after the changes.


Confirmed today. Only over 5 hours is long haul. Also, those that have already booked for the Birthday bash will have to pay for drinks. Pre-booked flights where they were advertised as complimentary drinks will be removed and you have to pay.

Worse is my long haul. Glasgow-Heathrow-Asia. Only £1200 and I will get a free drink if required on the flight from asia but I have to pay on the Glasgow leg.

THIS IS WHAT IM WORRIED ABOUT...... Casual conversation in T5 last trip.
Me: Not hitting gold this year only 1100 points but since Jan so I expect gold next year. Does that got me in the First class lounge.
BA staff: Well for now but that will change
Me: really
BA staff: can't tell you anything,
Me: will silver still get in this lounge?
BA staff: Errrrmmmmm.... can't say, just wait and see what the new MD does.

Now if that happens I will simply use my Priority pass but it is getting to the point that the only reason I go BA is for the "free" or "hassle free" heavy luggage I have.

I may simply go KLM/AF so I have two options of excess baggage rather than BA and they may end up loosing a few flights from me.
The economy seats on BA ore poor for long haul and the premium economy yesterday form Bangalore had the worst screen I've seen. The cathay screens in basic economy are better than BA premium economy. AND I actually get upgrades on Cathay.

Basically BA have just introduced a £100/month wine and sarnie charge/month on me, or put it another way..... the cost of two SH bashes.


Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much on Fri 30-09-16 7:21; edited 1 time in total
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@GlasgowCyclops, i do not understand airline economics. At all.

Two examples.

1. A trip to a remote part of Germany (from Geneva) a few years ago. Either 6 hours on a train mostly on swift well served SBB and ICE trains (which have decent service, food and wine) or a flight into Frankfurt and then the train, mostly the crappy regional one.

First class return on the train? €209 return. Economy flight? €2,000 !!!!

2. Milesandmore have a nice 30 flights a year gets you silver. This is easy.

We do, uh, 3 returns a year to Nice, 4 or 5 to London. Previously, Silver got you a checked bag on "light" (no checked bag flights). The marginal difference between Easy and Swiss is such that I now fly Easy instead. How can this possibly make any ecenomic sense?

Puzzled Puzzled
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@GlasgowCyclops, The BA entertainment systems aren't any better in BA Business long haul, at least on the 747/777's I've flown on to Vancouver and Tokyo. I don't know if the more competitive US routes have better systems. The screens are small, low resolution and non-wide screen, so everything is cropped, think first generation laptop

I know it is a first world problem, but Lufthansa and Emirates Business class had much better systems 10 years ago.

BA started going downhill after the financial crash, as there was a massive reduction the number of businesses willing to pay BA prices, so that their staff could get the perks of air miles and tier points upgrades.
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Another vote for Swiss, here! Very Happy
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PowderAdict wrote:
@GlasgowCyclops, The BA entertainment systems aren't any better in BA Business long haul, at least on the 747/777's I've flown on to Vancouver and Tokyo. I don't know if the more competitive US routes have better systems. The screens are small, low resolution and non-wide screen, so everything is cropped, think first generation laptop

I know it is a first world problem, but Lufthansa and Emirates Business class had much better systems 10 years ago.

BA started going downhill after the financial crash, as there was a massive reduction the number of businesses willing to pay BA prices, so that their staff could get the perks of air miles and tier points upgrades.


I can't fly business for my new company but the mini upgrade for premium economy. So any choice of airline would need that option.
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@Gazzza, Good luck investing your pension in airline stocks rolling eyes
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Fly Swiss short haul every single time- sandwich, drink, ski carriage and let's not forget the chocolate. Also fizz in their lounges which BA took out of their business class ones a while ago.

BA said they were scrapping food ages ago- the only big news today is the M&S tie up.
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@Nadenoodlee, Agreed. I love SWISS, and will book them every time if I can.
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@Nadenoodlee, you can get fizz if you ask for it in the BA lounge
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Those Swiss girls kept bringing me gin. I loved flying Swiss. I almost miss working in Mullhouse Toofy Grin
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Tubaski wrote:
@mikeholmes25
Sorry...
Quote:

all of your favourite branded wines, spirits and soft drinks also available to buy


Sad Sad

Hang on! No mention of beer at all!!!


Good news, I was so concerned I tweeted British Airways, and in almost no time at all
well, 10 hours
they came back and said that 'branded beers' would be available too. They didn't mention if they would be my favourite 'branded beers' though
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https://www.reddit.com/r/firstworldproblems/
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They should scrap all Food on short haul (less than 2hrs). It is not necesary.

People can survive.

If you take a 1-2he car/train/bus ride do you need food during the journey??
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