From Monday, British Airways are going to stop serving meals on short-haul flights and instead serve a snack. The bottle of water will be replaced by water cuplets, whatever they are. The changes were inevitable as BA searches for savings wherever they can. The only real surprise is that they deemed to describe the current sandwich a “meal”.
There’s a real range of comments on the Times piece, ranging from those who think it is the loss of another part of the service that differentiates BA from Ryanair and EasyJet, to those who don’t really seem to care. I like meals on flights mainly because they keep the kids quiet for a few minutes.
Times have changed and nowadays people seem to expect less from airlines in the way of food. When I was a rep for Thomson in Mallorca in 1998, Britannia Airways (now Thomsonfly) decided to experiment with serving passengers cold food at the airport instead of a hot meal on the plane. The idea was that it would free up more time for people to buy things on the plane. Passengers were handed a letter explaining the change on the coach to the airport, but it was a disaster. When the meals were handed out in the departure lounge all hell broke loose and reps had to go airside to try and calm the storm. The chosen reps entered to have rolls and fruit thrown at them. It turned out to be a short-lived experiment.
Images via airlinemeals.net
