British Airways launches a new Speedbird Cafe menu for your short-haul Economy flights

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• Niall says:

  14 Jul14 July 10:18

  Off topic or maybe on topic just about…

  Charged twice from buy on board on a BA flight. The guy said his machine wasn’t working even though the contactless made the noise… so then ran it though another machine and charged twice. Arg. Anyone else had this, who do you contact?

  • SH says:

    14 Jul14 July 10:47

    In theory BA customer service. In practice I would just tell credit card company it was a duplicate charge, charge it back, and let them sort it out. This is very easy with Amex (although I appreciate you must have used another card as BA machines don’t accept Amex using contactless, only when inserted).

  • FazzyBear says:

    14 Jul14 July 11:40

    As a merchant the sale may not go through if it was recently. If its pending i would wait until its been cleared.

    • Niall says:

      14 Jul14 July 12:15

      Thanks both. It was a couple of weeks ago. I did hold off in case one was cancelled. But both remained. It’s exactly the internal debate between trying to contact BA customer services vs a chargeback with Amex I was going through. I’ve only once done such a claim through Amex and the amount is tiny, but I’ve now gone through them as no chance of BA sorting soon.

• Justin says:

  14 Jul14 July 10:41

  I am amazed at how few people seem to be pre-ordering, on 8/10 flights I have done recently there have been only 1 or 2 pre-orders. On my last flight to CPH the machines went down, and they weren’t able to do any on board sales, as the only pre-order I got some very irate looks from PAX around me while I tucked into my Tom Kerridge Pie, Coffee and G&T.

  • SP says:

    14 Jul14 July 13:43

    I just don’t trust them to actually provide what I’ve ordered so would rather buy in the terminal and know I have something to eat

    • ADS says:

      14 Jul14 July 14:09

      Absolutely. Add in the pain of asking for a refund if they don’t manage to pony up what you ordered, and the hassle of pre ordering, and preferring to decide on the day what you actually want, and the high prices … and I just don’t see the attraction !

      For comparison – Ryanair manage to always do a full drinks/food purchase service on even very short flights.

  • John says:

    14 Jul14 July 15:14

    What’s so special about a flight? Do you pre-order your lunch at Pret a month in advance??

    • Justin says:

      14 Jul14 July 16:15

      No…. but it seems to be the best way to ensure that you can get a coffee on the flight. Right now with Security lines the way they are, including FastTrack, getting to Pret before a flight is hit or miss.

      • Brian says:

        14 Jul14 July 17:02

        But why would one necessarily need to have a coffee during the two hours or so of the flight? I mean, people go two hours without refreshment all the time – I don’t see why it’s suddenly so indispensable just because one happens to be on a plane.

        • Justin says:

          14 Jul14 July 17:14

          Depends on the length of the flight, 60 mins to JER/CDG/AMS sure. 4hr45 to DLM can be a long flight without refreshment. Plus with a lower humidity and pressurisation the body reacts differently to being on the ground.

• Oli says:

  14 Jul14 July 11:10

  is there a good pre-order option for long haul?

  • Rhys says:

    14 Jul14 July 12:05

    Speedbird Cafe is short haul only

    • Jonathan says:

      14 Jul14 July 13:01

      And BOB is not available when the carrier is BA CityFlyer

• numpty says:

  14 Jul14 July 12:02

  Does Plane Food still do the picnic bags? Had one years ago and it was really nice, but had to give the (branded) cool bag away to relative who wanted it.

  • chrism20 says:

    14 Jul14 July 15:59

    Yep still available. Fortnums also do a picnic one which IIRC is somewhere between £20 & £25 and is very nice

• Will says:

  14 Jul14 July 12:25

  Maybe I’m just very disorganised but I’ve no idea how hungry I’ll be or what I’ll fancy on the day of a flight.

  The whole appeal of food on board is convenience and as such if I’m hungry I’ll get something from the terminal and take it on these days.

  • Jonathan says:

    14 Jul14 July 13:04

    That is problem, the way around is buying something in the terminal !

• AL says:

  14 Jul14 July 12:47

  A while back, I wanted to order a Kit Kat and a cup of tea/grey dishwater from the caff, as the app prompted me to during check-in. I could have the dishwater, but not the Kit Kat — apparently needs 24hrs to get a Kit Kat onboard. I noted that I could get IAG Cargo to put LTL loads on the same flight with 1hr notice…

  • Jonathan says:

    14 Jul14 July 13:03

    It all adds unforeseen weight to the aircraft, they don’t know if the KitKat(s) will sell or not !

    • TimM says:

      14 Jul14 July 13:38

      By the same token, the airline doesn’t know how much each passenger weighs when they check-in and how much they will eat in the terminal or, indeed, if they will visit the lavatory, before boarding.

      If you are likely to ‘need’ a Kitkat, I would just carry a couple in pocket permanently. They don’t fall foul of the security rules (yet).

      I seem to remember Rob telling us that BA will give free boiling water upon request, so perhaps carry a few of your favourite teabags too, and some little pots of UHT milk in your liquids bag?

      • CamFlyer says:

        14 Jul14 July 15:49

        However, I expect that the airlines have a good sense of the ‘average’ weight of passengers. In contrast, an extra 20 KitKat could throw all the calculations off. More significant are likely the complex supply chain logistics involved in even getting the extra 20 KitKats on a truck from the warehouse (assuming they have even been delivered to the supplier), to the airport, through security, to the loading truck, etc. Arranging all that in only 24 hours sounds pretty good to me!😉

        • Erico1875 says:

          14 Jul14 July 18:30

          Then you have to assume Nestle haven’t sneakily reduced the size of Kit Kats, which could affect the weight, therefore BA putting more fuel than necessary to transport these Kit Kats.

        • Nate1309 says:

          14 Jul14 July 20:26

          If the KitKats are loaded at the start, whether they are eaten or not surely the weight is the same at landing. if eaten that person weighs slightly more, if left then the weight on the shelf is the same!

        • Dubious says:

          17 Jul17 July 13:22

          If eaten, the overall weight should be slightly lower, as some of the calories within the KitKat will have been converted to heat and kinetic energy.

• Marlene says:

  14 Jul14 July 16:01

  These short haul flights should be flying somewhere to start with…

• Dawn says:

  15 Jul15 July 15:12

  Read this yesterday and decided to sort out an order for my husband who was struggling to get online and so I filled out the order for him. It asked his seat number, name etc and the billing address was my info using the Barclaycard. He flew back from LGW to DAL literally a few hours ago – they did not bring him any food so after nearly 2 hours he asked them if his order was received. They said it was in my name (which is a different surname to his) and they had no info of his seat number etc. So if you want to use this service, order it yourself and not for someone else despite the process seeming to allow it. They had his food thankfully and he enjoyed it.

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