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We will be flying from Heathrow to JNB early next month. I may be mistaken but I thought that approximately 30 days before the flight we could choose from the menu in advance. Is this the case?
Also , if I were to choose ” lacto vegetarian ” under special dietary requirements , would a meal be chosen already for me and would that exclude me from choosing a meal from the menu or should I just keep dietary requirements as none?
Thank you
They took away the option to order your meal during the pandemic and still haven’t reintroduced it! Rob and Rhys keep saying it’s coming back soon 😂
But yes, if you select a special meal, that will be loaded for you – though you could probably choose something from the menu instead if they load enough!
There no longer seems to be the option to choose in advance an option from the standard menu.
If you choose a special dietary meal – that meal will be loaded onto the plane separately and the contents will have been decided by BA in advance.
BA no longer carry many spare meals on the flight and the crew would probably say to you if you wanted a standard meal that you would have to wait until they had finished doing the complete service to see what was left over.
I daresay it depends in which cabin you are flying in, but the above is based on WTP/Club Europe.
If you were travelling in either WTP/Economy I would suggest that if you wanted a standard meal then you should try and book seats as far forward in that cabin to have a wider choice of meals.
The crew do have a list of all the ingredients in the meals – so if you get the opportunity to choose standard meal you can see which ones have ingredients that meet your dietary requirements.
I have many experiences of dietary meals on BA as being Coeliac!!
Thank you – we are flying Club World
How hard can it be to bring back the ability to pre-order – it must save on food waste as well?! On our LHR-DXB flight in December everyone wanted the Christmas dinner option, and of course they hadn’t loaded enough so a lot of people didn’t get their first choice.
I found out later (from HFP, of course!) that status (I’m Silver) counts when it comes to deciding who gets their first choice – which is presumably why we were told there were no more turkey dinners (sad @Froggee face) but then they suddenly “found” two for us (happy face but also a bit guilty that 2 people were now having fish or whatever).
BA no longer carry many spare meals on the flight and the crew would probably say to you if you wanted a standard meal that you would have to wait until they had finished doing the complete service to see what was left over.
BA do over cater to allow for staff meals and breakages but every special meal ordered reduces the starting point for the calculation of ordinary meals so there is less slack.
If you don’t like the special meal then you can request something off the general menu but you go to the very bottom of the list and will only be accommodated from what’s left when all other passengers have selected their meals.
I’m not really sure why people expect BA to re-introduce pre-ordering or why they ever offered it as it introduces considerable complexity which equals cost. Plenty of good restaurants operate with daily changing set menus with no or very limited choice which you don’t get to choose in advance. Personally, I don’t really want to think what I might eat for dinner in a couple of weeks and fix that today unless I have to, eg for Glyndebourne. My wife and I never elected to choose in advance when it was possible on BA; we just see what we feel like at the time.
It also doesn’t seem to be very popular in terms of take up and BA report that the advance choosers also often ended up looking at the menu or seeing something different and wanting that, which isn’t entirely surprising. Some claim they had ordered something different or hadn’t pre-ordered at all to get out of having their choice. They are then unhappy when they don’t get what they want and/or the selection gets wasted. None of the food you will get on BA is going to be very good whenever ordered, so it seems a lot easier just to go with the flow.
AA has a good meal selection system on some routes and includes a couple of dishes not on the on board menu as well.
The only time I almost didn’t get my pre ordered meal was when I was rebooked at the last minute due to irrops but then an FA came and told me another passenger who had ordered the same hadn’t made it on board so I got theirs!
There didn’t seem to be lots of people arguing about not wanting their pre order. Most seemed very happy with their choices.
We always pre-ordered (and stuck with it!) Much better than being disappointed on the day – and possibly hungry during a long flight. Most other airlines seem at the very least to be able to advise passengers of the menu in advance – even in economy QR posts the menu to the app several days prior to travel.
Recently flew Virgin where you can pre-order and we did. However, I thought we would receive it first as others do when they order a special/diet meal. But no we were just asked for our choice as per normal.
Some of the “special” meals are far from special. My girlfriend’s CW vegan meal on a 13 hour flight was absolutely dire, no protein anywhere, and the cold plastic-wrapped bread is a far cry from the warm bread the rest of us get. It was worse than club europe food. Really disappointing.
It’s only “special” in terms of dietary requirements. I’d be surprised if the premium cabin ones are much different from economy. Certainly the child’s meal is pretty much the same!
It’s only “special” in terms of dietary requirements. I’d be surprised if the premium cabin ones are much different from economy. Certainly the child’s meal is pretty much the same!
Ha yes I know, just funny they call them special. In long haul they’re a substantially worse product than regular meals, especially for vegans. Even in First. I’m surprised they’re still getting away with it. Emirates miles ahead with an appropriate offering of Arabic mezze etc rather than a few leaves and half a tomato.
It’s only “special” in terms of dietary requirements. I’d be surprised if the premium cabin ones are much different from economy. Certainly the child’s meal is pretty much the same!
Ha yes I know, just funny they call them special. In long haul they’re a substantially worse product than regular meals, especially for vegans. Even in First. I’m surprised they’re still getting away with it. Emirates miles ahead with an appropriate offering of Arabic mezze etc rather than a few leaves and half a tomato.
Special.
Definition.
“not ordinary or usual”
My advice would be that if you really want a special meal, then order it. If you decide you want a different meal on board then let the crew know but it will be dependent on how many meals have been loaded and what you may want. Sometimes the unwanted special meal can be given to someone else who really wants it.
Status doesn’t come into it unless you are Gold or above. But crew will have a catch up in the galley after orders are taken to see if there are spares of certain types – then go back to the customer.My advice would be always have backup food in your carryon for any airline, there is just too much that can go wrong in provisioning of food to aircraft.
Special.
Definition.
“not ordinary or usual”
Yes, that describes the last CW special meal catering we had out of LGW. Ordered lacto-ovo vegetarian but the catering team decided that it was easier to do the same meal for everyone that ordered vegetarian (lacto-ovo or Asian) or vegan. That would have been fine, had someone actually thought through the menu. The starter was quinoa with a couple of leaves on the side, the main course was quinoa with a few stray bits of vegetable mixed through it and the light meal before landing was quinoa with a cauliflower floret…
And that’s why I miss the ability to pre-order! As long as I could pre-order a veggie main I was happy to take my chances on whatever else was available on the day knowing that even if there were courses I didn’t eat I’d still have enough.
I saw so many uneaten quinoa salads in domestic CE last year 😂 I think they’ve actually dropped it as an option now!
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