V-Flyer

Looks like BA may be about to start charging for food / drinks on their short-haul network (which I presume includes domestic flights too), though it looks to be an upgraded offering possibly supplied by M&S.

Unconfirmed details here

Great, next you'll hear that they will be playing the M&S ads on board. That'll make everyone hungry... This isn't just airline food, this is M&S airline food.

Yeah think this plan has legs. Heard on my flight to Bergen the other week that it was being considered although I heard Waitrose rather than M&S. On such short flights it is an obvious cost saver when people really don't need a meal and most likely would have bought a Pret or the like from the terminal pre-flight. Add to that the competition from LCC I think its only a matter of time.

The current Economy offering on BA flights that I have experienced over the past year or two is not good at all and I am sure there was a lot of waste.
If they are charging as per other comments at least the quality can be challenged if poor and waste eliminated.
I assume that CE passengers will continue to receive complimentary refreshments and these would be from the M&S Waitress collection??

As ever the comments on Flyertalk (well over a hundred of them) are most entertaining.

Particularly the faux outrage from those who say "well I'll just stock up in the lounge then". Which implies they can easily afford £5 for a sandwich.

The irony is some of them will still think nothing of giving the airline they claim is going to the dogs hundreds or even thousands of pounds for needless TP runs just to renew the shiny plastic card that gets them into a very average glorified waiting room ...

Wish they'd partner with Pret or EAT. Although given the choice between and M&S or Waitrose sandwich I'd pick M&S...

gumshoe wrote:As ever the comments on Flyertalk (well over a hundred of them) are most entertaining.

Particularly the faux outrage from those who say "well I'll just stock up in the lounge then". Which implies they can easily afford £5 for a sandwich.

The irony is some of them will still think nothing of giving the airline they claim is going to the dogs hundreds or even thousands of pounds for needless TP runs just to renew the shiny plastic card that gets them into a very average glorified waiting room ...

Thanks for that Gumshoe - I had totally forgotten how reading the BA Board can be just as amusing when you have forgotten to buy the latest copy of Private Eye

buns

Short haul buy-on-board has been confirmed!

M&S will provide food for sale on all domestic and European flights from January. All items will be under £5 and you will be able to pay with Avios.

Alcohol will no longer be free and will now be charged for!

** CORRECTION **
ALL DRINKS will now be charged for, apart from water.

Hamster wrote:Short haul buy-on-board has been confirmed!

M&S will provide food for sale on all domestic and European flights from January. All items will be under £5 and you will be able to pay with Avios.

Alcohol will no longer be free and will now be charged for!

** CORRECTION **
ALL DRINKS will now be charged for, apart from water.

Will drinks (incl champagne) and meals still be complimentary in Club Europe?

Yes, food & drinks will remain complementary in the CE cabin details here.

It's a request from passengers apparently.

"The decision to jettison free food from economy class comes six months after Alex Cruz took over as British Airways chief executive, having previously run its low-cost Spanish sister airline Vueling. Cruz said the change was a response to passengers clamouring for greater choice of upmarket snacks." quoted in The Guardian

pjh wrote:It's a request from passengers apparently.

"The decision to jettison free food from economy class comes six months after Alex Cruz took over as British Airways chief executive, having previously run its low-cost Spanish sister airline Vueling. Cruz said the change was a response to passengers clamouring for greater choice of upmarket snacks." quoted in The Guardian

Yes, and next they will be clamouring for higher fares, I expect !!

BA's food offering in short haul economy has not been good, so yes customers have said they would rather pay for something they like. But many items will be cheaper to buy in M&S before going through security.

The press shouldn't blame this on Alex Cruz though, it has been in the pipe line for a couple years

Vegascrazy wrote:

Hamster wrote:Short haul buy-on-board has been confirmed!

M&S will provide food for sale on all domestic and European flights from January. All items will be under £5 and you will be able to pay with Avios.

Alcohol will no longer be free and will now be charged for!

** CORRECTION **
ALL DRINKS will now be charged for, apart from water.

Will drinks (incl champagne) and meals still be complimentary in Club Europe?

Apparently CE food will be receiving 'enhancements'. Whatever that means.

While it is complimentary, it would have all been priced into the pricing structure & ticket prices beforehand.
If you now have to pay for what was complimentary then every passenger is going to be about £20 worse off.
The least they should is offer vouchers to use on board for all those booked flights after Jan 11th.
Its not like their prices are reasonable? £1.80 for a can of coke!

I am affected by this & from boarding 1hr before to getting to my final destination is going to be over 6 hours.
Even if I feed myself in the airport beforehand, that is still a long time to go without food. So I guess there will be even longer queues in WH Smiths as everyone grabs a meal deal for the flight.

I believe they're offering 1,000 Avios or, if pushed, a refund if you want to cancel if you'd already booked a flight post-Jan 11th. But you have to call or submit a form online.

Sealink wrote:Apparently CE food will be receiving 'enhancements'. Whatever that means.

Hopefully it will mean a fully cooked sausage instead of a half burnt/half raw one on the breakfast menu wallowing in a pool of fat which was an offering on an AMS-LHR flight which had repercussions on the subsequent LHR-SFO flight on VS.

As someone who makes a reasonable number of economy short haul flights each year, this is something I have seen coming for ages. Whether it s BA, Swiss or Lufthansa, the snack has been getting worse for a long time. It is usually some form of wrap or finger sandwich (and I mean that in the singular). Most people tend to turn this down.

To be honest, it is very rare I feel the 'need' for food on the plane. If I am hungry, I will eat in the departure lounge as the snack is so small it is not worth waiting for. It is a shame that they are getting rid of free soft drinks as I like a glass of orange juice mid-flight but I will just stick to the bottle of water I buy at the duty free shop instead.

One warning for those looking to take their own food with them. I had a very early flight to Europe earlier this year so took some breakfast to eat at LHR T5. When I went through security, my tray was shunted into the siding for further checks. It was early but I was sure I had no liquids in my bag. After waiting an age, my bag was pulled to the front and I could see on the screen what had been highlighted as the issue. When the security person also saw what was highlighted on the screen he was very apologetic for delaying me and we shared a joke over the errant item.

The unidentified liquids within by baggage was a Waitrose Pain Au Chocolat and the person on the scanner had seen the two sticks of chocolate in the pastry and thought that they could be suspicious!

Sealink wrote:Apparently CE food will be receiving 'enhancements'. Whatever that means.

It shouldn't be from January (it was the orig plan, and plan my change again!), but some time next year CE catering will be changed.

Logical decision but interesting now when weighing up flying easyjet vs. BA. Very small percieved difference now in economy. Especially with the hand luggage only fares you are in effect also paying extra for luggage

FLYERZ wrote:Logical decision but interesting now when weighing up flying easyjet vs. BA. Very small percieved difference now in economy. Especially with the hand luggage only fares you are in effect also paying extra for luggage

For the majority of economy flyers, the only difference that matters is price. BA already tries to match or undercut easyjet prices, so supplying anything easyjet doesn't doesn't make financial sense. As long as BA is cheaper (or similar price but more convenient flight times/airports etc), they will still sell seats.

Personally, I've bothered much about the existence of food on Economy short haul. If I was hungry, I'd pick up whatever meal deal offered in Boots, WH Smiths, wherever. Onboard, it's barely worth a mention.

However, dropping booze is significant. And I don't have an alternative to that either, I can't exactly buy a couple of minatures in the airport duty free, and drink them onboard. Not going to be cracking open a full bottle vodka got on the duty free either. So left with pay or do without.

It might be possible to get minatures through the clear bag in hand luggage, I'm not sure if they are actually restricted. But technically drinking them on the plane is still illegal though.

Smid wrote:However, dropping booze is significant. And I don't have an alternative to that either, I can't exactly buy a couple of minatures in the airport duty free, and drink them onboard.
.

Thats exactly what I will be doing!

Smid wrote:It might be possible to get minatures through the clear bag in hand luggage, I'm not sure if they are actually restricted. But technically drinking them on the plane is still illegal though.

BA allows you to drink your own alcohol on their flights.

Hamster wrote:BA allows you to drink your own alcohol on their flights.

Really? I thought that was illegal in the uk.

Is this also true in longhaul? Never heard to that before....

Perhaps "duty free" (ahem) might end up selling smaller amounts then. Downside of a HBO with a full bottle of vodka for the weekend, is that it's either going down the sink on far end, or getting drank in the hotel, which kind of defeats the point of going away and going out....

Then again, a full bottle of the cheap stuff might be cheaper than 2 drinks for two onboard (4x6 + mixer? heading to 30 quid).