BA to adopt 'dine on demand' in Club World business class?
By David Flynn, January 15 2017
In the same week as British Airways began charging many economy class passengers for food, drinks and even a cup of hot water (BYO teabag), the airline seems set to dramatically upgrade its meal service at the pointy end of the plane.
Anytime dining – also known as 'dine on demand' – could be on the menu for the forthcoming reboot of BA's Club World business class, according to the usually well-connected Head for Points website.
Rather than be locked into the cabin crew's timetable for serving your two inflight meals, travellers would be able to choose anything from light snacks to full meals from an expanded menu and have them served anytime during the flight.
It's a flexible passenger-focussed approach already employed by Oneworld sibling Qatar Airways and arch-rival Etihad Airways, among others, which lets business class flyers tailor their inflight schedule – when to relax, work, eat and sleep – according to their needs.
British Airways CEO Alex Cruz hinted at an overhaul of the Oneworld member's 'height cuisine' program at an investor presentation day in November 2016, saying "We are going to transform the way in which we serve the food, the amount of food, the type of food, and the quality of the food that we will be presenting in Club class. This is a major investment and this will begin next year."
"We are also going to do a step-change in service, not just for training but to a new service routine inside of the Club class experience on board," he added.
Eat lamb, count sheep...
Sleep is also shaping up to be central to the new Club World proposition, and dine-on-demand fits neatly into that formula.
"We are going to be focusing around sleep" Cruz said. "We will be changing the actual service routine to maximise the amount of time in which people can sleep."
"Beyond that, we are actually going to provide new beddings and other amenities in Club class which will make it more attractive and will allow us to have a better sleeping experience."
it's all part of £400 million (A$649m) investment "to try to make this product much more aligned and much more competitive", according to Cruz. "We aspire to actually make it better than all of our competitors."
Countdown to the A350
The star attraction of BA's renewed Club World experience will of course be a new business class seat (below) designed for the Airbus A350-1000, which the British flag-carrier is expected to begin flying in early 2018.
As previously reported, the seat will be a modern make-over of today's Club World seat introducing direct aisle access, increased storage space and a larger 15.4 inch video screen.
However, BA will retain Club World's 'high density' floorplan and alternating forward-backward layout.
However, Cruz has previously remarked that the new Club World would not be retrofitted across BA's long range international fleet – such as the Airbus A380 and Boeing 777-300ER and 787 Dreamliner fleets – because due to the evolution-not-revolution approach "it doesn't appear to be sufficiently revolutionary."
Readers are asked to keep their comments constructive and on-topic, and to add value to the conversation.
David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
21 Apr 2012
Total posts 3006
Dine on demand would reduce wastage and thereby cut cost. On a 13h flight, having had food in the lounge prior, in most instances I'll only need one full meal and a snack. Rarely would 2 full meals be consumed.
On BA's main TATL, with an average flight time of 7-9 hours I'd imagine only one full meal would be consumed most of the time followed by a beverage at the beginning or end of the flight, depending on departure time.
If BA is keen to show this change is about value rather than cost cutting, the quality of food and drink needs to be improved so that quantity is offset by quality. This includes espresso beverages in CW, and a better selection of non-alcoholic beverages like they do on QR.
13 Sep 2016
Total posts 12
Wouldn't 'dine on demand' increase wastage because BA needs to have a full menu available throughout the flight rather than just one menu for the main meal such as dinner and another for breakfast, and because people might eat more when they are not restricted to two 'meals'? PS What's 'TATL' in English?
16 Nov 2011
Total posts 580
I reckon BA's dine on demand will feature your choice of Marks and Spencer ready meals. Would match the way BA is going perfectly.
13 Sep 2016
Total posts 174
Actually I think a selection of M&S meals would be very good, not as the main meals of course but I agree, some of those M&S 'heat and eat' meals are very nice!
06 Jan 2017
Total posts 5
I hate their high density floorplan. I travel on my own and find it really confronting having to face a stranger 18 inches away.
13 Sep 2016
Total posts 12
I've flown Qatar and the 'anytime dining' concept is a winner, BA just needs to raise the quality of its meals and make sure they have enough to go around rather than being caught short and having a bunch of unhappy passengers.
American Airlines - AAdvantage
06 Jun 2014
Total posts 5
TATL is their transatlantic flights from UK to the US.
American Airlines - AAdvantage
06 Jun 2014
Total posts 5
Oh and if BA did M&S crispy duck heat and eat, I would be all over that like a fat kid in Maccas!
21 Apr 2012
Total posts 3006
M&S Food Halls would do so well in Melbourne and Sydney if they could only manage the supply chain....*sigh*
Qatar Airways
06 Jul 2016
Total posts 47
I flew MCT-LHR last month in First on BA. When the FA came to take lunch orders after take-off I told her we would like to eat in an hour 30mins. She said "we've already put the food in the oven and it will be ready in 45 minutes"! So I'm sceptical about them doing anytime dining in Club.
BA Gold
01 Apr 2012
Total posts 197
I'm pretty close to this project. There will not be dine on demand.
CX
05 Jun 2012
Total posts 127
I was interested to note that Mr Cruz didn't actually mention dine-on-demand in the quotations, so I was also sceptical that it would be a feature - that seems to be speculation by the author of the piece. Cooper81 seems to have confirmed that.
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