British Airways confirms return of full Club World meal service

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

• James says:

  17 Oct17 October 06:33

  So will the express evening meal also include hot starters and desserts? Is there an option to get it in courses or will they dump it all down in one regardless? I assume everything will also be properly plated without foil, the article doesn’t mention this.

  • blenz101 says:

    17 Oct17 October 06:58

    Assuming it goes back to the way it was previously the ‘express’ service is optional, selected starters and deserts (hot and cold) are marked as available as an express option and you can inform the crew along with your choice of drink that you wish to avail of this and everything is then served single tray.

    Full meal service is always still available. I think the only time foil was left on was to minimise handing / contact during the height of covid.

  • Rhys says:

    17 Oct17 October 09:10

    Yep, hot starters and desserts.

• x2000traveller says:

  17 Oct17 October 06:54

  Which still leaves the question of what BA’s competitive positioning actually is: its main strength is its extensive route network, reasonable frequencies (although Europe still a problem here) and seemingly happy flight deck crew. But on-board service, for both ends of the bus, is not a strength, nor (so far) is the new mixed-fleet cabin crew arrangement. So somewhere between a full-service and a budget carrier at present.

  • Alan says:

    17 Oct17 October 07:35

    Sadly the frequency topic is also where they’re now appalling for connections – I was stuck for 6h in LHR last time as they got rid of most of the daytime EDI flights.

  • Rich says:

    17 Oct17 October 08:50

    You think that mixed fleet is new? It’s at least a decade old?

  • Rhys says:

    17 Oct17 October 09:11

    BA couldn’t exactly offer more frequencies this summer given Heathrow capped daily passengers.

  • Ben says:

    17 Oct17 October 09:20

    Not sure what extensive route network we are talking about anymore: they have cut almost all their Asia Pacific routes and some Latin/South American ones, and now less frequency to some North American key destinations we thought untouchable. They are actually trailing compared to AF or other European operations that are in sync with post-covid reopening (i.e. Bangkok, Ho-Chi Minh, Taipei, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc.) I start to really find an issue with the lack of direct BA flights on offer.

  • AL says:

    19 Oct19 October 00:24

    Happy crew?! Which routes are you on?!

• Pete says:

  17 Oct17 October 06:57

  Repairing the legacy failures of Alex Cruz when he offered nothing to BA except cost cutting.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    17 Oct17 October 10:13

    To be fair he did launch Club Suite

    • SteveW says:

      17 Oct17 October 11:50

      And suck billions out of the main (only?) profit making part of IAG.

• Ted says:

  17 Oct17 October 07:13

  We’re flying LHR-AUS in Club World on the 28th. First ever long-haul BA flight (shocking, I know…). Good timing regarding food service it would seem – I’ll try and offer some feedback if I remember 🙂

  • Harry T says:

    17 Oct17 October 07:50

    Don’t have high expectations and you’ll be fine.

    • Ted says:

      17 Oct17 October 12:06

      5+ years of reading HfP, and specifically the comments, has prepared me to have pretty modest expectations. 🙂

      I think I’m most excited about experiencing an A350 for the first time – another tick off the avgeek list…

      • AL says:

        19 Oct19 October 00:26

        If it’s Club Suites, which I hope for you it is, it’s a great hard product. The soft product depends on the crew on the day (a recent DXB flight, for example, had them forget to serve a nearby passenger their meal and ignore the call bell!). Low expectations is a good idea, but I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

• Martin Limbach says:

  17 Oct17 October 07:14

  We’re flying to Cancun in early November and are excited for the change.

• Joan says:

  17 Oct17 October 07:22

  We had the most awful journey with BA club world a couple of weeks ago coming back from Dubai . Only first class passengers or gold members were allowed to use the BA lounge and the Marhaba lounge we were sent to was horrible and the toilets filthy . The queue to get on the plane was chaotic. We were offered a sandwich for dinner . The bedding – supposedly in a sealed bag was damp inside and black and mouldy ! The cabin crew were very stern – as if they knew it was all horrible and weren’t going to take any nonsense . I complained to BA and they’ve offered us 10k avios each which I think is rubbish – not happy

  • James says:

    17 Oct17 October 07:52

    Why didn’t they allow you to use the lounge? Is this normal in BA’s lounge in Dubai? And a sandwich for dinner, what was the explanation?

    • Joan says:

      17 Oct17 October 08:02

      James we were told only BA gold or first passengers can use the BA lounge – although sounds like it wasn’t much better .

  • Harry T says:

    17 Oct17 October 07:53

    You’re assuming the BA lounge is better – it likely isn’t based on my experience of both. It’s also very small, so I can see them running out of space if they have several flights on or an A380. At least they were prioritising their best customers for once.

    • Hbommie says:

      17 Oct17 October 10:16

      Any other OW lounges in DBX?

  • Spurs drive me mad says:

    17 Oct17 October 07:54

    I returned couple of weeks ago from DXB broken glass in my seat, complained at the time and crew tried to clean it up. Complained when I got back 5000 avois. The BA lounge is appalling my garage is bigger and less cluttered! The food was dire some artichoke starter and beef with mash that was so runny it thought it was soup and why they serve those cardboard cheese crackers is a mystery to me.

  • Caroline says:

    17 Oct17 October 09:54

    10k Avios only!
    We complained about the new terminal C at Orlando and the lounge not yet being open with a pop-up desk with limited snacks & beverages offered instead.
    We were each given 10k Avios for that.

    • Joan says:

      17 Oct17 October 16:30

      Caroline I know – I’m really angry and have gone back to say that’s not good enough – I want all my points and my companion voucher back

• Sam says:

  17 Oct17 October 07:33

  So, does this mean full staffing levels after returning on every cabin?

  • Rhys says:

    17 Oct17 October 09:12

    Yes, staffing on most (if not all, by now) fleets has returned to normal levels.

    • Nick says:

      17 Oct17 October 09:25

      @Rhys there might be more crew overall but longhaul flights are still departing one down from normal complement, which is why the CW service is still on one tray. LGW longhauls are more often than not topped up with crew on airport standby so they’re closer than LHR, who don’t do this. The news is that from the start of the Winter schedule all flights will be rostered full again.

      The bit of news that’s missing in this story but that’s almost as good is that CE will also return to normal. Currently the cabin size is strictly limited to the total seats that would not require a top-up crew member to be added, which has had the effect of bumping up fares and significantly reducing the availability (and attractiveness) of POUs and AUPs. This should also go back to normal from the end of the month.

      • Save East Coast Rewards says:

        17 Oct17 October 10:15

        My CE to Linate recently extended to the exit rows. I don’t think it can be physically larger than that

      • Richie says:

        17 Oct17 October 10:41

        BTW For my BA LGW-VRN flight in Nov, BA is offering a CE upgrade for £79 one way.

        • Nick says:

          17 Oct17 October 12:02

          @SECR I can’t remember the exact row but on an A320ceo it can go as far as row 20-ish. Only ever used to happen on the Monday morning GVAs but it definitely can.

          @Richie that’s BAEF, not BA. I appreciate the difference might seem small but it’s really not – they hire and pay their own crew and operationally there’s zero interaction with mainline from this perspective, so any updates aren’t really relevant to them.

• Sam says:

  17 Oct17 October 07:33

  * are and * in!

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