British Airways Will Re-Introduce Basic Hot Meals On Long Haul Flights From Sunday 25th October

After months of serving cold snacks and sandwiches even in their premium long haul services British Airways will bring back BASIC hot meals to their long haul flights from this weekend onward.

BA has excused serving cold dishes with the Covid-19 pandemic, saying that their diminished meal service is less dangerous when it comes to the transmission of the corona virus.

In the end it was pretty obvious that all this was just another cost cutting measure on the expense of passengers who often times just got a cold sandwich on a 12 hour long haul flight.

Don’t expect too much though. From what I’ve seen the meals – even in Business Class – are more like Economy Class which makes even less sense because “hot is hot” so why go for Economy Class food on china instead of serving proper food?

The second meal service will be a “chilled snack” instead of a warm meal.

Internal images of the new meal service instructions were posted online on Facebook by Inflight With James which shows what’s going to await you:

The following information was attached to it:

The following service changes will be introduced on 25 October 2020 (ex LHR, LGW & America) and on inbound flight from 26 October 2020 (ex Far East, Asia & Caribbean).

There are no changes in First, Club Europe or Euro Traveller.

CLUB WORLD

• Primary meal service includes a hot meal which will be served on a meal tray with tablecloth for an interim period.
• Secondary meal service has been replaced with a chilled snack and will be served on a meal tray with tablecloth.
• On 77M for return catered flights (only), the secondary service will continue to be loaded in a box, due to space availability.

WORLD TRAVELLER & WORLD TRAVELLER PLUS

• Primary meal service now includes a hot meal which is to be served on a lined half-size meal tray for an interim period.
• Secondary meal service has been replaced with a chilled snack service to be served in caterer provided box/bag packaging.

While British Airways is making a step in the right direction here I can’t see this to be a serious effort to restore inflight service to an acceptable level corresponding with the class of service booked by the customers. The beverage service has been decimated as well in all classes including First without any note of it being restored.

I also don’t like the terminology of this being an “interim” solution which pretty much suggests that the dreaded snack boxes could make a comeback at any time.

A friend flew British Airways First Class last weekend and the meal served was – sit down – yellow curry chicken with rice in an aluminum tray! Unbelievable!

In the meanwhile other carriers such as ANA, Lufthansa or Singapore Airlines serve their full meal service as usual so one has to wonder what BA’s excuse is for providing such substandard service?

Conclusion

British Airways attempts to – at least temporarily – make some improvements to their onboard meal service which is urgently needed as they have been short changing their customers for months “because Covid” which has just been a cost cutting measure and had nothing practical to do with the pandemic.

I wonder how long BA can upkeep this travesty until passengers finally start to jump ship and use the competition such as Virgin Atlantic where they do offer full inflight service, another indicator that BA’s cutbacks has absolutely nothing to do with Covid.