BA Catering problems, who is flying with them?

Pat if you are comparing Gategourmet to naim, you do not own any naim.

Gategourmet is, has been and will continue to be a cost driven outfit turfing shit into little plastic boxes, take the flight, get over it.

Ask for the Kosher meal when you book. You'll probably have to choose between milkish or meatish but it will be different from what everybody else gets and at least you'll know that an independent check was made of the processes and premises of the supplier.

We used to fly BA regularly but have not used them for the last four years. Given the propensity of their strike to staff it is unlikey tha we will use them again.

Airline food be it BA or whoever is generally pretty awful.

BA for food (Below business class) = Wrong
Better to buy your own at the airport - But if your after a bargain fair (for me) "Cheap Airlines" re often more expensive than BA or most majors (unless you get the bargain sweet spot)

Hang on, was BA really to blame? The impression I gained (from just reading the papers) was that they had negotiated a contract with Gategourmet which essentially was uneconomic for the company-who then held BA to ransom. Not terribly clever business practice but not directly BA's fault. I seem to recall that they have sufferred at the hands of strikes by BAA staff in the past recently rather than their own, ow was it a computer failure. Not sure BA have deserved the bad press.

FWIW Last weekend we were delayed a bit by weather conditions flying back from holiday and missed a BA connection late Sat night from Gatwick to Manchester. The BA staff in Toulouse pointed out I had bought cheapo apex tickets on the web and these were actually construed as two seperate journeys, ie that BA were not honour bound to help. It could not have been simpler at Gatwick however. Within 2 minutes we'd been given first class accommodation, dinner and breakfast and booked on the first flight next morning. Nothing unique I'm sure but good enough.

Others may know better but I get the impression BA is one of those companies we love to knock, and it is not altogether deserved.

Bruce

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:

Others may know better but I get the impression BA is one of those companies we love to knock, and it is not altogether deserved.

After many years as a frequent flyer in the UK, Europe and Asia my opinion was that BA were decent for long haul flights, but not very good for shorter trips. I very rarely use them now as within the UK I use cheaper airlines where possible (I couldn't care less about food etc. on these flights) and for longer haul stuff I try to avoid the London airports that BA tend to stage out of.

The point I was trying to make was...

It amazes me when a comany offers (and advertises) a product at a price and then only provides a fraction of the product, oftentimes they seek to still attempt to charge the initial price!

Whatever one thinks about airline food (the now missing product) I cannot believe the arrogance of still attempting to charge the same price.

Ceertainly, I did not hear or see BA offering temporary price reductions to make good the reduction in service.

I once flew long haul in a full business cabin where my in Flight entertainment system was broken so I had no movies for 8 hours. The airline knew about this in advance but did not warn me. In the end they offered me €100 compensation which I rejected as insufficient but they refused to budge. That was until they received a court summons from me for failing to suppl the advertised service. Free luxury return flights were forthcoming!

Sometimes I am simply baffled by the arrogance of these people! Consumers rise up!!

P


PS Garyi, I have lots of Naim gear!

BA were giving vouchers for the missing food. What is interesting is the low price the airlines pay for the food.

AS for worst flight ever it was Aer Lingus cramped seat worst legroom ever.

You make it sound as though the loss of food means a major part of their service is gone! That's absurd. The portion of your ticket that goes to pay for your meal is absolutely minimal.

Second, I really don't see why BA should get the blame. Once again, the unions there are out to destroy a perfectly good company. It was much the same when they went on strike last year, for not better reason that BA wanted an electronic system that would have prevented staff from lying about their hours (the arrogance, I tell you). This lot are just as bad: striking illegally and then complaining that they've been let go. Mind you, BA have been silly in just one regard: having a sole supplier and thus no fallback position whatsoever.



regards,

Tam

BA's action in outsourcing the food service in the 90s was a big mistake, the food was a significant brand element for BA and they let go the control of it.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tam:
(the arrogance, I tell you). This lot are just as bad: striking illegally and then complaining that they've been let go.
___________________________________________________
600 workers are summonsed and informed by a megaphone that they are sacked because they aren't keen on signing new contracts which will worsen their wages and conditions. They then go on strike, what arrogance, what temerity, don't these people know their place. Transport them to the colonies I say.

But the 600 workers wre not BA empoyees - the strike by BA employees was an illegal secondary strike against a company that was not in dispute. The union was not interested in stopping the illegal action.

Hints of returning to the "winter of discontent " I fear

OK, here goes.. I work for BA. I wholeheartedly have sympathy for the many families going on holiday, heartbroken kids not getting to disneyland, & missed vital business meetings. The whole thing was a terrible mess that rightly dissapointed & angered our customers, & many many staff alike.
Now the good news. Catering is about 99% back to normal, & the other 1% will be re-introduced v. shortly.
DON'T ask for special meals,as the supply of these is still erratic.
I agree with a lot of bruce's comments, as well as tam & malky. I can see that to a layman, it is all too easy to just believe "the world according to the daily mail", but as with most things there is more to it than that.There is some blame to be pointed a BA mngmnt,eg the inability to see a potential problem ahead,but Gate Gourmets behaviour has been atrocious. The wildcat strikes by a v. small number of my "colleagues" was also inexcuseable.
BA has a new agreement in place with GG. We are now paying more for the same product, to keep GG afloat, as well as giving them approx £7 million to help them structure a redundancy package for their staff.
Unfortunately, there are no other caterers who are big enough to handle the BA contract, so effectively BA HAD to do a deal with GG.They had us by the short & curlies. Although on-board food is something that a lot of people anticipate/expect, it is a fraction of the overall ticket price. How many businessmen would cancel their new york meeting purely due to no food on the plane? As for on-board entertainment failiures, again it is disappointing when these occur, & rightly anger the customer, as well as the crew. However, this can & does happen to any airline, at any time. A regrettable fact of life.Next year, there will be a much upgraded entertainment product coming on stream. I understand that regrettably this episode has caused many to "never fly BA again", which is sad, & bad for BA. I can understand peoples anger, & views, apologise once more, & hope I continue to strive to give our existing customers the excellent service they deserve. Please don't shoot me!
matt.

Many apologies to all the "shorthaul" flyers out there. My comments about being 99% back to normal ONLY apply to longhaul flights.AFAIK, s/haul flights are still adversly affected.Apologies for any confusion I have caused.

Matt

Apreciate your comments - esp re long haul as I am off to Phoenix with your colleagues very soon.

Over the years though I have found the BA staff to be very reasonable and accomodating and it only takes a few flights on other airlines via BA codeshare flights or US internal flights to appreciate the BA cabin service.


YMMV

I fly too much and must say that have had mixed experience with a number of carriers. I find the low-cost airlines (not actually that low cost) have a generally very poor attitude to their customers and I generally try to avoid flying with them (partly becaus eof the inconvience of getting to their hubs). If something goes wrong you will get no assistance, even if you had to get a last minute £300 one way ticket! Being able to pick your seat when you are 6'3, check in online, automatically check-in, have some hope of not being turned out on the street if a connection is missed etc is a valuable service.

I would say that my recent experience as a frequent flyer of BA and other non lowcost carriers is a little better the low cosr carriers and I have recently had some very good service (beyond the call of duty) from BA. I personally don't really care for food on short haul flights (it is universally bad), a cup of coffee or wine is fine. I do however find airlines which a few months ago had advertsied themselves as offering low fairs with the extras suddenly start charging over the odds for nasty sandwiches and drinks (BMI) somewhat annoying. I also find it depressing that airlines don't simply increase their fares instead of adding fuel surcharges, they have obviously been paying to much attentions to the stealth tax concept!

Matthew

Being part of the catering industry there is no doubt complicated structure to how the food is priced. However I would estimate that if served with a hot meal, plus tea/coffee twice on a flight the total cost per head would not exceed 60p per head.

Is it therefore worthwhile BA changing its leaflets, paper ads and website to save 60p?

I liken a Club class long haul journey (costing say in excess of £3000) to a hand made soft cloth suit (or some other luxury premium item attracting a premium price)

If the suit has a mark or small tear on the cloth, it is largely worthless because as a whole, if fails to achieve its objective of the wearer looking and feeling good about the item. The disfigured suit would either be throsn out by the tailor or sold at a small fraction of its premium price.

If an element of the total BA (or other carrier's) package is missing or defective (say no food or no entertainment), then I believe it to be similarly devalued and should be fractionally priced.

Regards P

Hi pat, I appreciate the comparison between a hand-made suit & a club world ticket.I think you have a point re; discounts. The question is probably "what fraction of the price should it be reduced by?" As far as the ticket price is concerned, you could not sell a seat for a lower price in advance, as eg the entertainment problem would not be known about that far in advance, if at all. After all, a lot of tickets are sold weeks/months in advance.Retrospective customer service, ie you &/or the crew writing in to customer services to report the problem after it has happened is the only practical way.I then hope that "service recovery" would be given to the affected customer, if the crew could not swap seats, etc on the day. Now with a suit, it is quality checked well before it is put on sale, & faults are recognised/price adjusted at a much earlier stage.
Airline tickets are subject to the law of supply & demand.The load factors at present are extremely high. Try to get a cheap ticket to New York in december with BA. Fully booked, so top prices.For some people, movies/food are extremely important. For others, it is irrelevant. They prioritise reliable, safe, punctual flights.Worldwide, surveys state that in flight entertainment is only about the 5th or 6th most important element to a flight. We would all prefer that 100% of things worked 100% of the time, but unfortunately the world is not like that. I do respect your feelings if you have had a bad experience with BA.Nobody should take losing a customer lightly.
regards, matt.

quote:

Originally posted by Malky:
600 workers are summonsed and informed by a megaphone that they are sacked because they aren't keen on signing new contracts which will worsen their wages and conditions. They then go on strike, what arrogance, what temerity, don't these people know their place. Transport them to the colonies I say.

As Derek rightly says, the strike that caused the biggest problems (other that lack of food) was the illegal sympathy strike (and it's quite right that sympathy striking is illegal, it was absurd what the unions were allowed to get away with doing to this country back in the 70s, and how anyone could want a return to that is beyond me).

The 600 workers who were sacked, were sacked following an unofficial strike. Let me be clear, I happen to be a member of a union, and it's done me well over the years. But their capacity for being bloody silly, and cutting off their noses to spite their faces knows few bounds.

I support the right to strike, though it has to be used responsibly, and legally. That means that it needs to be balloted properly. The reason those workers were sacked was because their unions let them down badly. They should have advised their workers to return to work, and then balloted them if they felt it appropriate. I do not understand why anyone feels they have the right to suddenly decide they no longer want to go to work and then feels they should keep their job.

Yes, they were then dismissed by megaphone. I agree this is somewhat insensitive. However, I think it is also the only practical way to tell 350 (or 600, depending on whom you believe) people they're fired.

Indeed, Gate Gourmet has even offered financial compensation to some of those sacked, even though they have no legal right to it! I'd also point out that they say the figure of people sacked was just 350.



regards,

Tam


N.B. I should stress that I have absolutely no connection to either BA or Gate Gourmet.

I am a pretty loyal BA cutomer, especially for longhaul. I have used United and American from time to time and would say that United offer a decent economy package, though with every carrier the quality of the experience is very much down to the crew on the day. Some just seem better than others, which must reflect on the CSD I suppose.
As for the catering issue, did anyone read thexpose in the Times from a reporter who went to work for Gate Gourmet at Heathrow? That was enought to make one very wary of eating anything on the tray and to especially avoid ice in the drinks!
Personally I don't worry too much about the food onboard. If it's ok that's a bonus - so long as there is plenty of soft drink available I can usually stave off hunger for the 12 hours or so that I'm under BA's wing (groan!). I cannot understand people whinging about the catering on shorthaul at all.Does anybody really need it? A decent beverage service is usually all you really need.
I'm going to LA early next month with BA - be interesting to see how things are.

Hi Chris.Just to update you, 2 independant, unannounced inspections, by health & safety reps were recently conducted at GG kitchens. They represented concerns by cabin & flt. crew following these "exposes". After all, crews food comes from the same kitchens as the customers. Both inspections gave the kitchens a clean bill of health, & were unable to substantiate the press allegations. A degree of sensationalism on the papers part, it seems. As I said, catering on all longhaul flts is now back to normal, with the possible exception of "special meals",eg kosher, low fat diets, etc. Hope you enjoy the LA flight.
matt.

Thanks Matt. That's reassuring! Can't believe a Murdoch title was guilty of a"degree of sensationalism"! Must be why I stick to the Telegraph!
You guys have got a lot of stick over this whole issue and I suspect that much of it is undeserved. The catering was outsourced at the time when every business was doing similar stuff to concentrate on "core skills". I'm not sure that many others regretted giving up control of a vital part of their overall business ( IT being a prime candidate for outsourcing). The only thing outsourced in this household is the ironing!
I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks in California. Hope the flight kicks it off well!

Yes chris, the outsourcing thing is a big bone of contention. BA sold their catering division to swissair for £60 million, which was considered good business at the time. Swissair then sold it to GG when 9-11 hit hard.The catering strike cost BA about £45 million+, so I for one hope that the whole wisdom of outsourcing is v. carefully reviewed. I know that BA are not alone in outsourcing,but I feel a little reticent to give SO much control to someone else who can hang us out to dry.
Enjoy california. No ironing for a couple of weeks!
matt.

Strictly a wash-and-wear policy!