Freedom Menu

We have clubhouse access (although we have used that before and found it wonderful) and have already booked in for DTCI... getting excited now ^)

We have clubhouse access (although we have used that before and found it wonderful) and have already booked in for DTCI... getting excited now ^)

DTCI is worth getting excited about. It makes check in/bag drop a breeze

Hi All,

Our note about changes to the Upper Class meal experience has generated a lot of response and as we’ve followed it, stimulated internal debate as well. We are naturally disappointed to hear some of your feedback; however, we are taking notice. A number of questions have been raised also, so we thought we’d give you some of the background as to why we’ve made the decisions we have.

During the two year development of the new meal experience we reviewed every aspect of the existing service to see what worked for our passengers, crew and operationally.

To assist us in making sure we improved our meal experience, a lot of our time was spent analysing a whole host of data. This included cabin crew reports and our Xplane questionnaires, of which we receive about 100,000 every year. We also conducted over 60 comprehensive trial flights right across our network.

This research helped us to identify that more interaction with our crew and the quality of service we offered were most important to your overall satisfaction, so we understandably focused our attention on enhancing these elements of our experience.

The decision to remove the ‘Freedom menu’ wasn’t made lightly. It received a huge amount of reflection as part of this process and while we realised that this element was very important to some of you, it became very apparent through observations we made onboard that the vast majority of our Upper Class passengers preferred to eat their meals at the beginning of their flight and didn’t make use of this service.

Our observations were backed up when we analysed the consumption data of the food we loaded to cater for our Freedom service. No one likes waste, and we found we were consistently throwing away between 10%-15% of food that was not being eaten.

Knowing that you’d prefer more interaction with our crew, and to enhance the quality of the services we provided, this level of food wastage meant it was an obvious area where we could refocus our resources. We’ve replaced a service that was only popular with a small number of passengers with new additional services on most flights. The controversial cheese and port service is one such example, designed to give crew the opportunity to interact in the cabin, rather than running relays backwards and forwards to the galley.

Saying that, it’s important to note that freedom to dine still exists. On flights where the service has historically proved the most popular, we’ve provided our new ‘Graze’ menu which can be ordered from at time during your flight.

We do remain proud of our new service and I’d encourage more of you to share your thoughts as you come to experience it onboard (it’s only 14 days old today) and we will continue to listen to the discussion.

Kiwibrit (Geoff) - thank you once more for taking the time to engage with us here at v-flyer and for responding to some of the comments posted. Having actually flown now since the new service began - I really like the new service. I never once used freedom dining but know others did and were fan's - the crew really seem to enjoy the positive interaction with the passengers (well at least on my last two flights) and long may that continue!!


Jon

I've just completed MAN-LAS and back in Upper.

Based on what I saw out of 28 portions of 'amusing' bouche available over the two flights only 2/3 of them were consumed. Alot of people took them, had a look and quickly put them down

Whoever thought serving amuse bouche was a good idea and approved it needs sacking. It really is very tacky trying to make UC look like something it's not.

The rest of the food service wasn't really any different to my last flight MAN-LAS back in November. The old salt & pepper shakers were out in force for those who care.

The food wasn't great on the outbound the prawn starter was nice enough but the beef was horrible. Really overdone, I should know better than to order the beef but nothing else appealed so I resorted to my stock of protein bars

I did 'graze' later opting for the chicken ceasar salad. This was actually not bad but there was barely any chicken on it. I saw a 'mini' burger go out and it looked like a full burger to me.

The return flight I had the salmon starter, it was gone in two mouthfuls (could've done it in one). I had the stuffed chicken for the main which wasn't bad at all, I'm sure I've had this before though.

No deserts or cheese for me as I'm on a nutrition/training plan at the moment. The cheese trolley with it's pre-plated cheese is tacky and a waste of time but doesn't really get in the way on the 747. I just can't see how anyone thinks it is an improvement? Cheese trolleys should be done properly or not at all IMO.

For breakfast I had 2 lots of scrambled eggs with mushrooms and tomato, this was nice enough too. There was no issue made when I asked for the second portion. I asked for a brown roll that is listed on the menu for the bacon roll. This was no problem apart from the fact it was actually a white roll for which the CC apologised but it meant I couldn't have it (nutrition plan the only reason) but it would be useful if they actually had the correct roll as listed on the menu.

I and two/three others in the cabin got an Xplane survery. No pen so the others never bothered with it. I still filled mine out. It really is crap though. Nowhere to add your own thoughts, questions are still not specific enough (I really wanted to tell VS what I thought about the amuse bouche and cheese trolley but couldn't). Despite what VS staff have told me on V-flyer before there is no mention of the fact you can fill out the survey later and send it in and the CC make an announcement asking you to complete it and hand it in before landing.

So for me the new food service was no great shakes but thankfully once again the CC were fantastic as ever.

[preiffer]

Had a frustrating time on the 301 last week.
Because I didn't want a dessert after my main, just some cheese, I was left to sit and look at my table for nearly 45 minutes in total while they cleared away all other mains, asked about desserts, served desserts, cleared them away, prepped the trolley of doom and then finally worked their way up the aisle with it.

NO discredit to the crew - they were great, and were delivering the service as designed. The problem for me is, on the "old" service, I would have had a small cheese plate minutes after my main course and then able to grab an extra half an hour of snooze time.
Instead, as has consistently been the case since the service was "improved", I'm sat for 3/4 of an hour, bored, waiting for a simple plate of cheese.


Oh, and flimsy plastic "personal cake stands". Tacky faff. Again, as above, if you're going to do something and make a big deal about it - do it WELL.


I've had the new service on 4 flights now, and another 2 to come in a fortnight. I said to myself that I'd give it time before coming to my final verdict. It's had that time now and it's a fail for me.

Unlike great improvements in the new suite, when it comes to the meal service the old way was better.

As I mentioned above I got an Xplane survery on my last flight but I also emailed my thoughts to VS because the Xplane survey doesn't let me express my views freely.

Apparently the majority if passengers love the new service without the freedom option, they also love the amuse bouche and trolley service.

Seems like I'm in the minority.....