Reply To: Club Europe water before take off

[JDB]

@BlairWaldorfSalad – it sort of was partly in jest re sustainability, although to be fair I notice that increasingly even older people like me are turning away from plastic water bottles and many youngsters are very serious about not wanting them, so I questioned whether putting out 48 plastic bottles in a full short haul Club cabin was actually a good idea or not? I don’t know the answer but I do read a lot of casual comments about what BA could or should do which feel a little lazy and unthinking. I like to ask questions!

It was mentioned above that BA should offer water/champagne/OJ but cost aside, the idea of the crew trying to do that for up to 12 rows during boarding or taxiing isn’t really that serious unless they for instance, do something about all the excess hand luggage people take an age to stow. With economy passengers filing past and knocking the glasses of aisle seat passengers, crew trying to carry a tray in the aisle etc. It could also end up creating negative feedback when champagne wasn’t served all the way to the back rows (or they just didn’t try when the cabin was too big) or a short taxi meant it wasn’t served at all, causing the usual people here to suggest a complaint to BA for some Avios. I find the moans about getting one’s first choice of food in Club are also quite unreasonable and entitled; they wouldn’t be writing if it happened in a restaurant and what do they actually expect BA to do? Should they be carrying one of every main dish for every passenger so that nobody is disappointed? Or should they just have a single main dish, so nobody is disappointed? That would resolve the complaining. Apart from the cost and limited storage issue, food waste should also be everyone’s concern so one is really dealing with an unduly fussy eater problem rather than an airline issue and you anyway still get the same starter, cheese and pudding as everyone else.

Cost is obviously a major concern for BA (as it is for any European legacy carrier or LCC) , particularly in its European network and while there are lots of long haul transfer revenue/cost allocation adjustments that could be made, if BA presented the short haul operation on Dragon’s Den, they would be told it was un-investable so every penny helps.