BA catering improvements
British Airways still hasn’t returned to full pre-Covid service, some of which is down to lack of staff and some I can only assume is simply saving money. Considering how much they are charging for premium cabins, personally, I don’t think it’s good enough. Stick another £10 on the price of a ticket that’s already £2000+, nobody will care. But we do care about getting poor-quality food.
The good news is that from 1 August, as I previously wrote, there will be improvements to the food in First Class, World Traveller Plus and World Traveller. We now know exactly what those will be. Why they can’t improve on the Club World offering by using a trolley, for example, or doing a hybrid one tray service like Finnair, I don’t know. You can read about Finnair’s new business class service in this article.
Firstly, hot towels finally return. I always thought it was stupid to get rid of them as cleaning your hands with a towel is surely a good thing for hygiene, if not as good as hand sanitiser. These will return to First, Club World, and World Traveller Plus but not Club Europe. I’d be surprised if they return in CE if they are not back now.
Before covid certain routes had different meals to reflect the destination, such as a Thali service in First on Indian routes. These will now return. Hot starters, soup and hot desserts will return to First. This should mean a greater rotation of starters as well since the prawn one has been around for what feels like forever.
The Club Kitchen is currently full of what I would call “rubbish” – crisps and chocolate mainly. So if you want anything healthy or substantial, you are out of luck. The old options such as sandwiches, yoghurts, and fruit will gradually be returned, starting with the longest services.
In World Traveller Plus, bakery items such as bread rolls will now be served warm. You will also get a second hot meal in World Traveller Plus and World Traveller. Shorter flights will get a ‘hot refreshment’, which may be the return of the pizza or similar. You will also get three choices in World Traveller Plus for the main meal as well as a proper menu.
Finally, there will be some changes to what stock is carried in the bar (fingers crossed brandy comes back).
In Club World, there will be no major improvements until late October, when they should return to pre-Covid catering and hopefully ditch the one tray. There are also likely to be some more “improvements” to the service at this time, but we don’t know what yet. On the positive side, from mid-August BA will be returning to pre-pandemic crew numbers on the A350 in Club World, so that may speed up the service.
HT: Flyertalk
What do you think of the service improvements? Let us know in the comments below.
British Airways relaunchs Gatwick to Cape Town
From Tuesday 13 December 2022, British Airways will relaunch a winter service to Cape Town from London Gatwick. The service will run until Saturday 25 March 2023. There will be three flights a week on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, returning on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.
While there are some Avios seats worth snapping up, if you don’t need to book now or plan to book cash, you are better off flying from Heathrow as that will offer Club Suites, unlike Gatwick. I can see Avios seats in December, February and March although not necessarily both ways. You could look at flying via Johannesburg one way and buying an internal flight as one solution.
There will be some other changes at Gatwick for long haul this winter with BA resuming Barbados, Doha and San Jose Costa Rica.
British Airways will also move its route to Providenciales from Gatwick to Heathrow for the winter season, as an add-on to the Nassau route.
8 comments
Just checked, January, February and March, cannot believe BA want £8,869.24 to travel in World Traveller Plus from LGW-CPT. Any takers?
Sorry correction that is for two, but the price is still outrageous.
Let’s be honest, BA catering was never going to win any awards. Our trip from London to Seattle in BA Business in April this year was so underwhelming. The food in particular was more like an offering in economy on short haul. A terrible experience. The new improvements are very welcome.
I quite like the look of the pizza to be fair! Am looking forward to trying some catering from other companies from now on – got my Star Alliance loyalty card now and first business class flights in Jan 2023. The last time I flew Club World I took sandwiches from Pret on with me, which was just as well because of the ‘rubbish’ in the kitchen. Current prices are ridiculous.
I’ve switched to self-catering from Pret. And switching back to Star Alliance.
LGW CPT was available yesterday for 4 on the AMEX 241 and I’d put my credit card in only to be told that the seats were sold during my booking process and I’d not been charged for the transaction! There was nothing left at all on any date thereafter.
BA catering and premium cabin service- there really is nothing to be excited about and this from the airline that brought us the ‘cradle’ seat and other innovations. I’m only with them because we have 8 241 vouchers to use as a consequence of Covid cancellations- nothing more. They really don’t deserve my money at present and Doyle is in his bunker, ignoring their constant negative PR. Staggering really…
We flew from LHR to MIA on Saturday in WTP. Nine hour flight and the second meal (snack) was half a sandwich served in a brown paper bag, and a Kitkat. The staff were embarrassed to serve it. New improved second meal service from the 1st August doesn’t have much of a target to beat. Off to JNB in September and BGI in November both in CW. Wonder what culinary delights we can expect!
I shall look forward to see what will change in CW, I’m flying to DEL in October before the changes take affect and back to LHR once the changes have reportedly taken place in November. Brandygate ha let’s see what happens with that. On a more positive note I finally got my double tier points from a BA holiday…… it only took 91 days. ????
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