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British Airways announces its in-flight service cuts for August ….

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It is hard to believe, but British Airways has now started making a regular monthly anouncement of the latest cuts to its in-flight service.

From early July, as you may remember, we saw:

First Class

Amuse bouche removed from the meal service

Blanket removed from day flights, provided only on request

British Airways A380

Club World

Changes to Club Kitchen stocking with more ambient – ie chocolate bar – and fewer fresh items

World Traveller Plus

The second meal removed on shorter routes, to be replaced by the opportunity to take something from a basket of ambient snacks passed around by the crew

Pretzels, cheese and biscuits removed entirely

World Traveller

The second meal removed on shorter and medium length routes, to be replaced by the opportunity to take something from a basket of ambient snacks passed around by the crew

The bottle of water replaced by a small plastic cup of water

Pretzels, cheese and biscuits removed entirely

Toothbrushes and toothpaste no longer be provided but they will be available on request

According to cabin crew reports on Flyertalk, which I clearly cannot verify, this is what we will see from early August:

First and Club World

Invitations to the arrivals lounge will no longer be given to passengers on flights arriving after noon.  Whilst the lounge stops serving food at 12.30, it has always been open until 2pm – but perhaps no longer?

Club World

Passengers will no longer receive a choice of starter.  From London, you will receive a compulsory tomato, mozzarella and avocado salad

(This is apparently a trial for one month only and will be retained if successful)

Ice cream removed from the Club Kitchen

World Traveller Plus and World Traveller

Tuck boxes removed – these are the boxes of small snacks which are loaded on the longer long-haul routes and kept in the galley for passengers to come and take as they wish

On the upside, Fever Tree tonic water will now apparently be available on all aircraft, long and short haul.

Don’t forget to check back here towards the end of August when I should have the list of September service cuts available ……

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (147)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • TILESH PATEL says:
    23 Jul23 July 10:03

    Ive just downgraded to the free BA Card and American Express even decided to refund me the full BA Card fee even though my card got renewed in march. I have nearly 160,000 avios in my account. I might even just sell these on. Is there a suggested way to do this ? Thanks for all your help Raffles.

    I will now fly other airlines

    • BillyBoy says:
      23 Jul23 July 11:12

      Hi Tilehurst,

      I will buy your 16k Avios – if the price is right 🙂

      Reply on here and we can work out how to connect…

  • Ian says:
    23 Jul23 July 10:12

    Who actually gets on a plane to eat the free salad or ice cream? As much as I love this website and flyertalk I do think people start to forget that we fly to get somewhere!

    • Peter K says:
      23 Jul23 July 10:33

      But the point is that if the cost is similar do you choose the better or worse option?

      If you had two taxi companies, both similar cost, one runs Vauxhall Insignias the other Mercedes E class which would you go for? Neither is a bad option but one is clearly better…

    • Rob says:
      23 Jul23 July 11:48

      My kids eat the ice cream !

      • Ian says:
        23 Jul23 July 12:15

        I eat the ice cream too but the prices of club and first tickets have been going down every year, some of the recent sales have been record low prices that I have wondered if they are error fares…. If that means no ice cream for a 6-12 hour flight then I can live with that.

        I think BA is betting on the fact that, like Ryanair and easyjet already know, people will book the cheapest airline at the end of the day

        • zsalya says:
          23 Jul23 July 12:38

          If they weren’t cutting in First Class as well, then I could see some sense in stretching the gap between CW and First.
          The thing that really matters to me is the flat bed.
          Beyond that, the extra cost of First means there needs to be more distinction, otherwise the elements look poor value.

          • Ian says:
            23 Jul23 July 13:03

            If I want to get somewhere easily and quickly, I fly BA direct. If I want to eat/drink and enjoy the journey I fly Qatar. I would never get excited flying BA and expect the worst. Never disappointed

  • William says:
    23 Jul23 July 10:17

    I am not a business traveller, but my wife and I travel quite frequently from the North of Scotland in economy!
    I cannot understand why BA make a simple life so complicated. When I book an easyjet ticket, I can purchase the seat of my choice, check in online in 30 days and print off my boarding card. With BA I have to wait, purchase a seat at a hugely inflated price from a restricted number of seats (some of which are unsold), then check in very close to departure time.
    They deserve to go down. If the service is not as good as Easyjet (would one have imagined saying that 10 years ago?) then the prices should be less than Easyjet.
    Mr. Vueling (of BA fame) could learn a lot from Easyjet. Rant over.

  • HiDeHi says:
    23 Jul23 July 10:30

    Cannot really see how club Kitchen can get much worse. It really has been pathetic the three times I have had it on LH routes. A few cadburys funsize bars and the occasional ice cream. Now the ice cream is going… Cannot help but feel that the gap between BA and the 5 star airlines is growing bigger and bigger.

  • James67 says:
    23 Jul23 July 11:08

    Dear Santa,

    I know it’s early but this Christmas could you please bring me year-round Finnair flights from Edinburgh, and help me wean my partner off CW. I don’t know if I can suffer another year on Budget Airline (sorry, BA) and I want to save my avios for more pleasant intraAsia flights on MH and CX.

    Yours desperately,

    J67

  • M says:
    23 Jul23 July 11:11

    I really want to know how BA plan to measure the success of the one starter choice in club?
    You can’t state it is a 1 month trial but have no measures of success in place.
    They really are not doing themselves any favours as AA in business is a far superior food service when travelling stateside. The mint choc chip ice cream is divine!

    • Cheshire Pete says:
      23 Jul23 July 12:50

      We had the most amazing custom made, choice of flavour, Ice Cream Sundae when flying internal AA flight LA to MCO in 1st. Simply nothing BA could match in any of their cabins.

  • Mark Priest says:
    23 Jul23 July 11:25

    I’ve now decided I will only use BA for avios bookings. They will no longer get any flights for cash.

    It really can’t get any worse!

    I’ve got a couple of CW and F flights coming up, I will be talking to Virgin this week to see if they would like my business instead.

    • barry cutters says:
      23 Jul23 July 11:35

      I find the virgin upper class seats too small. iv only flown on the a340 mind

      • John says:
        24 Jul24 July 01:30

        BA Club seats aren’t big either, I’d say they’re one of the smallest now.

    • James says:
      24 Jul24 July 05:50

      I’ve come to the same conclusion. Cathay have some good prices to Tokyo from LGW (and one of the best lounges making HK a great place to transit) so I’ll spend cash on airlines that look after their customers and avios on BA when I have to use them.

  • Michael says:
    23 Jul23 July 11:42

    Here’s a thought… How independent is SkyTrax? If BA dropped a star, there would be uproar in the company and something would change. How do we make that happen? Or do BA sweeten them enough it’s not even possible?

    • Lady London says:
      24 Jul24 July 06:44

      i have never regarded Skytrax, and quite a lot of similar league tables, as genuine and unbiased.

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