Is British Airways ending its brunch service?

In an unsurprising move, we believe that British Airways has decided to roll back its much-maligned brunch service.

Our source believes that it will end in February.

There is already some respite this month because Christmas meal options have been added over the festive season.

It’s fair to say that the Press Office was sitting on the fence when we asked for confirmation:

“We trialled our new brunch offering with customers during the summer and it received good customer feedback so we rolled it out across 24 flights.  We want our customers to be happy and we will listen carefully to their feedback on the changes.“

We are still to meet someone involved in this mysterious trial. Let us know if it was you!

What happened with brunch?

Introduced on 15th October, the British Airways brunch service replaced the previous meal pattern which served breakfast on flights departing before 8:30am and lunch afterwards.

Breakfast was in effect extended under the new menu, with brunch served on all flights departing from 8:30am until 11.30am.

In reality, because a flight that pushes back from the terminal at 11:30am isn’t at cruise until an hour or so later (particularly at Heathrow, which is often congested), passengers were being served brunch well after midday. Those in the rear of very large Club World cabins might not get their brunch until 1:30pm – time, I think, when most people have moved on from eggs and bacon or waffles!

Whilst the brunch service didn’t exclusively serve breakfast items, it did lean heavily in that direction.

On an October flight from London to St Lucia, for example, you had a choice of smoked salmon, goats cheese and grilled artichoke or a cheeseboard for starters – the standard lunch options.

For the main course, it suddenly swapped to breakfast items. It was a choice between British mixed grill (chicken, pork sausage, mushrooms and hash browns); cheese frittata with baked beans, potato hash, mushrooms and four cheese sauce; or belgian waffles with chocolate sauce and custard.

The rest of the menu was unchanged. Brunch came with a standard dessert and the full wine menu was available. Because who doesn’t have wine with breakfast?

Brunch gets a hard landing

As you can imagine, the new brunch menu went down like a lead balloon. I suspect most people would agree that breakfast is normally the least exciting meal to be served on a plane. Often there is little room for variety, with a heavy focus (as above) on eggs, potatoes, sausage and/or bacon.

(HfP policy is that we avoid reviewing flights which only have a breakfast service if we can because it gives the airline little room to shine.)

The thought of extending what is effectively a breakfast service in all but name beyond midday did not thrill customers.

The press coverage, both on Head for Points but also nationally in The Times and The Telegaph amongst others was overwhelmingly negative. The Times dedicated virtually the whole of page 3 of the print edition on 29th October to the story and we were told it was the most read article on their website that day.

HfP guest writer Oliver Ranson crunched the numbers and realised that the 11:29am cut-off affected 25% of First Class seats and just over 20% of Club World seats, concluding that 20% was BA’s “magic number” when it came to what were presumably cost-saving measures.

What was particularly perplexing about the changes is that British Airways has been touting a £7 billion investment in its customer experience. Whilst the lions’ share of the budget will be spent on new aircraft and IT, BA was also investing in new Club Europe cabins, onboard wifi, new lounges and a new First Class.

It was unclear how the new brunch menu fit into the narrative of an airline moving back upmarket after a decade of cuts in the 2010s under the previous CEOs.

This is despite the fact that BA parent IAG posted an operating profit of €2 billion in the third quarter alone. As a shareholder, I’m delighted. As a passenger? Less so.

British Airways acknowledges the problem

It didn’t take long for the cracks to emerge.

As we reported a week after our original article highlighting the changes, British Airways began offering customers that complained about the new meal service up to £150 in vouchers in compensation.

Given that the cost saving to BA of serving you brunch instead of lunch was likely to be under £2, offering up to £150 in compensation wasn’t going to be sustainable (not everyone gets this much – some are offered £100, some receive Avios).

Anyway …. assuming that our information is correct – and there hasn’t yet been an internal memo on the rumoured changes – normal service may resume from the February 2025 menu switch. Let’s see.

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