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Is British Airways new Club World business class catering essentially a big con?

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If you are flying to London from Hong Kong in Club World today, you will have received the ‘new’ Club World meal service for the first time.

This was, as you may remember from the glossy British Airways launch event last year, to be provided by Austrian group Do&Co.  Do&Co is the gold standard of airline catering, and is the reason why Austrian Airlines business class has such an outstanding reputation for its food.

The new Club World meal service is being added to additional routes as the weeks go on.  Whilst I had heard a few reports about poor quality, it wasn’t clear to me why.

British Airways Club World catering

A crew member on Flyertalk has now spilled the beans.  Apart from New York JFK, the food is generally unchanged.  Apart from New York JFK and the odd outstation, the primary food provider remains Gate Gourmet and not Do&Co.

“The same food arranged differently on new china” is how the crew member describes it.  It is worth noting that this poster is a respected and long-serving member of Flyertalk.  He also feels let down, because even cabin crew did not have this explained to them during the training process.  They were also expecting to be serving food of the New York JFK standard on other routes.

Remember that a photo from a crew training session posted online showed Bollinger champagne being served.  Good luck tracking that down.

He also claims that the amount of food loaded has also been decreased in recent weeks as a % of passengers booked, so there is less chance of being able to have the first choice of food.

Now, the more cynical among you may not be surprised by these ‘allegations’.  (Are they ‘allegations’ really?  It is a statement of fact that Gate Gourmet remains the food supplier and there is little sense that much has improved in terms of quality.)   However, with all the talk of “£400m investment” (a sum now increased to £600m) you would have expected something to be delivered.  It seems not.

Another cabin crew member I contacted has confirmed the story. That person did feel that there had been a little improvement over what Gate Gourmet was previously providing but that the JFK route food used in all of the PR is far superior.

I also heard an interesting story about why Club Europe catering is being changed again.  I would like further corroboration on this before I write about it, so if you work for BA and know what I am talking about then drop me an email just to reassure me.  ‘Seven’ is the magic word I believe ….

Some good news on the bedding though

The roll-out of the new The White Company bedding is continuing, albeit at a snails pace.

From 21st February, it will be available on:  Atlanta, Dubai, Hong Kong, Washington, Houston, Kuwait, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Philadelphia, Riyadh, San Diego, Seattle, San Francisco and San Jose.

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Comments (133)

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

  • Kinkell says:
    14 Feb14 February 08:40

    We’ve just come backdrop San Diego and The White Co wash bag appeared. Certainly the bag is a vast improvement over the cloth shoe bag thing previously issued. Contents are broadly the same …moisturiser, pulse point stuff (?!) lip balm from WC,The pen, toothbrush etc eye mask and socks are all the same, with socks and mask now in grey. Bedding as before . However, the 747 was clean, in fact sparkling!

  • Kinkell says:
    14 Feb14 February 08:41

    ….Er. ‘ back from… ‘

  • Paul says:
    14 Feb14 February 09:02

    We always use our avios to fly fort when we can.

    We recently flew from LA to London, and when I asked for a sleep suit and mattress, I was told there was not any.

    Does this mean there usually is bedding and sleep suits?

  • Edgar says:
    14 Feb14 February 09:34

    Is it maybe just the case that Do&Co need more time to scale up, or that there is still a GG contract in place that can’t be broken at this point in time?

    • KP says:
      14 Feb14 February 09:43

      either way, you cant serve GG and tell the world its Do&CO

      • Rob says:
        14 Feb14 February 10:10

        To be fair, I doubt they ever said that Do&Co was taking over catering. It was implicit, however, given that Do&Co food was used at the PR launch along with Do&Co branded crockery.

        • shd says:
          14 Feb14 February 11:44

          So it’s basically the usual smoke and mirrors, but we knew that as soon as we saw through the stage-managed appearance of the Bollinger.

          Be nice to see the £600m figure taken apart to see what it’s (allegedly) going to be spent on, and over what period.

        • KP says:
          14 Feb14 February 16:16

          I thought the food is presented with a little card that says Do&CO? Even the trolley service has a Do&Co logo? Or is that to NYC only and unbranded for the other pseudo-do&co routes?

    • Rob says:
      14 Feb14 February 10:13

      The latter. That said, if BA agreed a long-term contract with Do&Co I’m sure they would make the necessary investment in new facilities required to produce the volumes required by BA. Gate Gourmet could be bought off with a few quid.

  • Jay says:
    14 Feb14 February 09:39

    I just flew out of LHR on BA0073 to Abu Dhabi; World Traveller Plus ticket. Cost was over 1800 pounds. I was seated in Row 19, window seat. Traveller Plus Configuration rows 16 to 21. By the time I was offered a meal. No choice available. Take it or leave it. BA service for nearly 2000 pounds.

    • KP says:
      14 Feb14 February 09:43

      why would you pay £2k for WTP? Surely CW is much less than that?

    • Alex Sm says:
      14 Feb14 February 10:34

      To Fly, To Serve. The latter went out of the window a looong time ago…

    • Lady London says:
      14 Feb14 February 13:38

      I’ve told BA to “leave it” in exactly that circumstance and had no meal. Luckily without having paid so much.

      When British Airways catering got really ridiculous even on long-haul my response to being handed a small chocolate bar as ‘second meal’ 9 hours into an 11-hour flight was “Please take it back. British Airways clearly needs it more than me”.

      Is this bait and switch? Would a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about British Airways advertising and promotion of ‘new’ catering mentioning a supplier they’re largely not using for it, have any effect?

  • vlcnc says:
    14 Feb14 February 09:50

    Do&Co catering is fantastic, it is also why Turkish food even in economy is so fantastic. This sounded to good to be true from BA, so sounds about right! Also follows the Cruz regime of coming across as miserably miserly and cheap… They keep being caught out but don’t learn…

  • R C says:
    14 Feb14 February 09:51

    I flew BA first a380 from LHR to JNB on a 241 last week and an hour into the flight we lost power and IFE for the 4 seats down the right hand side of the first cabin (we were seated in 2k and 3k). The power never came back. Full cabin so we were just stuck with no power for the remaining 10 hours of flight.

    The crew were excellent given the situation and did their best but the experience was ruined. No lights, no power to charge devices, couldn’t recline our seats so the crew had to manually recline the seat either fully upright or flat.

    The service manager made us fill out a customer relations card and said someone would be in contact but we haven’t heard anything from BA yet. No status with BA at the moment and we’re flying back in club world in a couple of weeks.

    Does anyone have any experience with BA customer relations and how they might handle this situation?

    Thanks

    • New Card says:
      14 Feb14 February 10:36

      I wouldn’t expect BA to be proactive in compensating you…
      For IFE/service issues of this nature in First I would expect BA’s Customer Service team to be able (and, eventually, willing) to offer around 20k Avios as compensation through the Customer Service team – this will take a bit of moaning…
      If you think it would help your complaint you can send a Subject Access Request to BA (they usually respond quickly) and this way you will receive a copy of whatever notes the service manager submitted to head office about the failures. Good evidence to be armed with when complaining, if nothing else.

      • Lady London says:
        14 Feb14 February 13:41

        Try Twittering. Social media platforms seem to get better response. I guess it’s harder for anyone to hide when problems are posted on these for all to see.

    • JAXBA says:
      14 Feb14 February 13:00

      Flew last week? Haven’t heard anything? Give it 6 to 8 weeks…

      Yes, even for an F passenger. No, it isnt what it should be. Yes, 2 months is a realistic time frame.

      If you hear back sooner you got *lucky* – you just get to start the negotiations earlier.

    • Jimmy says:
      14 Feb14 February 14:55

      I’d query how you handled the situation. Did you look for a seat in biz (or even WTP) You could easily have been served F drinks etc but ‘enjoyed’ a more comfortable seat (or bed) in the circumstance….coupled with IFE of some description (and power).

      Capiche?

    • JamesB says:
      14 Feb14 February 16:09

      Could it even be fraud? A legal view would be interesting.

    • Darren says:
      14 Feb14 February 16:46

      A number years ago in F we received 50000 avios each for flying in an old style config. This is the level I’d be satisfied with, but my expectations these days would be less. 20,000 maybe?

      • New Card says:
        14 Feb14 February 17:22

        You are probably right – we received 20k for a service-related complaint but it wasn’t as bad as this example.

    • R C says:
      14 Feb14 February 20:33

      Contacted BA via twitter and got a very quick response for more details and a phone call shortly after. We were both offered a good amount of Avios as compensation which we accepted. Their social media team seems very good and overall happy with the outcome.

    • John says:
      15 Feb15 February 02:42

      Initially they will ignore then deny there was an issue warranting any compensation then a lengthy delay and finally if you’re lucky you’ll be offered some miserly sum in vouchers. NOT what they used to be

    • carol haraldsson says:
      16 Feb16 February 11:52

      They will have someone call you and apologize but they wont compensate you. I flew two weeks ago from Muscat to London in Business Class and just as breakfast was served I saw a cockroach climbing up my window and had to smash it! The crew were lovely and submitted an incident report right there and then. Customer relations just called me (20 days post flight) and said sorry–no compensation for cockroaches in business class and that is that. So so sad British Airways–going to fly elsewhere now.

  • vand says:
    14 Feb14 February 10:27

    New bedding on Tokyo by June? I hope so…

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