Is British Airways disguising food and drink cost cuts as health measures? Let’s compare.

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• NigelthePensioner says:

  10 Jun10 June 06:46

  Catering is clearly by W. Walsh fine dining just now!

• Mr(s) Entitled says:

  10 Jun10 June 06:48

  “if you do need to travel long-haul First Class over the next 2-3 months, remember that you DO have a choice”

  Pretty sure the FCO advice is for all but essential travel. I do not believe it stipulates that you simply must fly first class or not at all darling.

  • Rob says:

    10 Jun10 June 09:15

    You do know Ryanair is running a 40% service from 1st July?

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      11 Jun11 June 08:12

      People may need to fly. People do not need to fly First Class. That is a ludicrous statement.

• Anna says:

  10 Jun10 June 06:49

  I read this as “disgusting food and drink” at first glance!

  • Sav says:

    10 Jun10 June 08:53

    Me too – and not far wrong!

• Yawn says:

  10 Jun10 June 07:00

  I’ve flown KLM business class twice within Europe since the pandemic, and all you receive then is the standard cheese wrap with small cup of water that you normally get in economy (left at your seat at the start of the flight). No drink services whatsoever.

• Andrew says:

  10 Jun10 June 07:12

  And the no alcohol on board rule is because BA believe people can’t follow social distancing if they are drunk! What a total load of rubbish – they could at least provide one drink, no one is drunk after one drink! So in answer to your question in the headline – it’s a resounding YES, of course it’s cost cutting. We shouldn’t expect anything else for a company that puts customers last.

  • Doug M says:

    10 Jun10 June 07:17

    The answer was always going to be yes, anyone reading the article knew that before they clicked.
    WW is a one trick pony that responds in the only way he knows how to any event, make cuts save money.

  • J says:

    10 Jun10 June 08:08

    Non argument anyway as crew would be in big trouble for serving somebody so drunk they cannot follow instructions, and the passenger would also obviously be breaking the law.

  • Peter says:

    10 Jun10 June 08:14

    People can’t follow social distancing on board an aircraft anyway so BA’s excuse for not providing free alcohol is just more BS.

  • vol says:

    10 Jun10 June 08:24

    …some people begin their drinking journeys prior to boarding the aeroplane 🙂 😉

    • Andrew says:

      10 Jun10 June 08:40

      Although with no lounges, bars or duty free shopping at the airport, somewhat harder now.

  • Rhys says:

    10 Jun10 June 09:35

    Virgin aren’t serving alcohol, either. I think the aim is to reduce interaction between crew and passengers.

    • Anna says:

      10 Jun10 June 09:43

      They could pop a nice bottle of merlot or sauvignon blanc in the carrier bag! (Or both, one for after take off and one for the sandwich course)

• Doug M says:

  10 Jun10 June 07:15

  I find it quite interesting to compare Lufthansa and BA. LH essentially said no until they were gifted €9 billion, they have a lock on Frankfurt and Munich and are protected from any serious competition. BA did or didn’t (BA or IAG?) get a trifling amount relatively, and are being threatened with the loss of Heathrow slots. LH protected their comfortably paid staff, BA are threatening to cut jobs and terms of those that do remain.

  • J says:

    10 Jun10 June 07:59

    I think it’s more that BA fear no repercussions – they know they can offer minimal service and attack older staff and get away with it. Lufthansa are just as dominant but Germans are fully aware of Lufthansa’a monopoly, they don’t pretend there’s competition. And if senior politicians, executives from BMW, Bayer etc flew Lufthansa and got the Ryanair treatment things would quickly change!

    • Andrew says:

      10 Jun10 June 08:44

      It’s hard to tell from your reply which airline you think is doing things right? You seem to be suggesting the UK tax payer should give BA a colossal amount of money to protect the premium experience of our top execs and politicians?

      Personally I’d say BA have the right approach. Take only as much money from the government as they absolutely have to, ensure their staff are on market level packages and cut costs where they can without damaging the brand too much. Such steps should put them in a competitive position for years to come whereas Lufthansa will just become even more of a financial basket case. BA’s lack of competition is hugely over played by many on here. If you want to fly anywhere in the world you almost always have a choice between BA and that country’s airline. It’s only an issue if you want to keep all your flying withing the one airline/alliance.

      The only thing BA absolutely should be doing is offering partial refunds to premium customers because of the current drop in service.

      • Doug M says:

        10 Jun10 June 09:19

        Why do you think they’ve not took the same approach with Iberia?

      • Andrew says:

        10 Jun10 June 09:44

        Who knows why they haven’t. Maybe Spanish labour laws don’t allow them to. While good for the staff that could be a factor as to why Iberia have only just recently started turning a, relatively, tiny profit after years of losses compared to the healthy profits at BA. Without state aid Iberia probably would have gone under many times which would have been even worse for staff. BA is clearly the cash cow for IAG and IAG’s behaviour suggests they want to protect that.

        It’s not fair to compare different airlines due to the very different markets they operate in. Madrid has never been a global travel hub in the way London, Paris or Frankfurt are. Iberia’s fleet is a third the size of BA and Lufthansa.

      • J says:

        10 Jun10 June 09:57

        @Andrew this is exactly why BA get away with more as people with a lack of understanding think they have more competition than they do.

      • Andrew says:

        10 Jun10 June 10:22

        @J I find your reply a little insulting. Maybe you could help my lack of understanding?

        BA have at least one competitor on the vast majority of their routes. If that competitor felt BA were exploiting customers they could very easily undercut them on price or offer better service. In reality the level of competition is just about enough to keep BA honest. Prices are reasonable and service levels acceptable if not exceptional. As has been pointed out many times many other European markets have even less competition than us.

        I’d love for there to be 10 competitors on every route but then none of them would make any money and after a few years of bankruptcies we’d be back in the position we are now. Maybe you could name a major country outside of the US, India and China which has more than the one operator with a large longhaul route network?

      • J says:

        10 Jun10 June 11:00

        @Andrew – what about Japan? ANA and JAL are excellent, but then Japan have higher standards in terms of quality and service so it’s a bit of moot point. I’m sure ANA would still be excellent even without JAL. I’m certain BA would be even worse without Virgin. Point taken and even though the US has “competition” and multiple airlines by Asian (or even European) standards, they’re generally terrible. My point about BA and lack of competition is that they have the majority of slots and will (especially with connections) usually be the most convenient and practical option.

  • Doug M says:

    10 Jun10 June 09:12

    @LL – With all respect someone with perhaps a little more influence than your self.
    From the Independent.
    The government should strip British Airways of its slots at Heathrow, a senior Tory MP has said.
    BA plans to make up to 12,000 of its 42,000 staff redundant, and to change the employment conditions of those who keep their jobs. It blames the collapse of demand created by the coronavirus pandemic.
    Huw Merriman, the Tory MP who chairs the Transport Select Committee, described the airline’s behaviour as “ethically outrageous”.

    • Rob says:

      10 Jun10 June 09:25

      Slot allocation is governed by international rules so this would probably require special legislation through parliament which will never happen.

      And is taking slots off BA to hand over to Qatar, Emirates, Etihad, Turkish etc the best way of securing UK jobs?!

      • Doug M says:

        10 Jun10 June 09:31

        Obviously not, just saying what’s out there. I’m pretty sure Willie Walsh knows the difficulty of stripping any slots from BA, so it may be an empty threat. But I think the point of it is to try and leverage some sort of improvement in the behaviour of the BA management, which is or isn’t led by WW. Did you listen to him on LBC, he really got himself in a twist over whether or not he was calling the shots at BA.

      • Doug M says:

        10 Jun10 June 11:05

        But the truth is BA don’t have any sort of ‘excessive dominance’ when compared to European rivals, they just don’t. You can argue in isolation they do, but it’s really only fair to compare them to the likes of LH/AF/KL – and on that basis they’re not excessively dominant in their home market.

      • ChrisC says:

        10 Jun10 June 12:24

        I’ve said before that any new slots generated from runway expansion should only be lent to airlines.

        So if an airline has an expansion slot between say LHR and RIO and they fail then it reverts back to the slot handlers and does not become part of the airlines assets to lease or sell on and basically make money from something given to them for free,

• Dev says:

  10 Jun10 June 07:21

  Of course they are … I got 2 hot meals and a bar service in KQ econn no only last week. To KQs credit, they tried to do a normal of a service as possible.

• Clive says:

  10 Jun10 June 07:22

  Currently BA fights are NOT fully crewed. They are with minimum crew – legal minimum in most cases so the standard service is not feasible – or so I was told on my long haul flight last week. Clearly cost cutting. BA have a people problem – given the treatment of their staff it will be many, many years before any one of its employees feels proud or motivated, and one can expect terrible service for many, many years to come, almost self-destruct mode, to teach the mis-management a lesson, despite the fact Walsh will have long gone. In any case my GGL card has been duly cut up and sent back and my Avios donated to charity. And my company (which I own) now has a gross misconduct clause for any employee mis-using company funds to fly BA, a national disgrace.

  • Rob says:

    10 Jun10 June 09:13

    Most flights are running with under 50 passengers. You don’t need full crew. Even the legal minimum provides enough crew for each passenger to have the meal of their choice cooked from scratch using whatever ingredients are around 🙂

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