I was quite surprised to hear that British Airways - once the world's favourite airline - have decided to scrap all meals, excluding breakfast, on all flights under 2.5 hours.
My surprise stems from the fact that this is a rather dangerous route to go down, in my humble opinion. I am totally aware that BA have been implementing several cost cutting exercises recently but this may be a step too far.
Swapping a pretty decent sandwich for a bag of nuts or another snack will effectively put them on a par with Alitalia, for example, as far as Italian destinations are concerned. Now that post-merger Alitalia has improved its timekeeping, there was only the in-flight catering left to differentiate them from British Airways. Will customers be happy to pay a higher fare to fly BA for what is probably a very similar service?
Anyway, never mind Alitalia.... some analysts have pointed out that axing meals on short-haul flights will reduce BA's differentiation from the no-frills carriers and I cannot disagree with this viewpoint. Once you scrap the free sandwich (drinks will still be available on BA), passengers will be left to ponder if the inconvenience of not having a pre-assigned seat - if you fly Easyjet for example - may be tolerated if you can save £50 or more on a short-haul flight to anywhere in Europe.
My surprise stems from the fact that this is a rather dangerous route to go down, in my humble opinion. I am totally aware that BA have been implementing several cost cutting exercises recently but this may be a step too far.
Swapping a pretty decent sandwich for a bag of nuts or another snack will effectively put them on a par with Alitalia, for example, as far as Italian destinations are concerned. Now that post-merger Alitalia has improved its timekeeping, there was only the in-flight catering left to differentiate them from British Airways. Will customers be happy to pay a higher fare to fly BA for what is probably a very similar service?
Anyway, never mind Alitalia.... some analysts have pointed out that axing meals on short-haul flights will reduce BA's differentiation from the no-frills carriers and I cannot disagree with this viewpoint. Once you scrap the free sandwich (drinks will still be available on BA), passengers will be left to ponder if the inconvenience of not having a pre-assigned seat - if you fly Easyjet for example - may be tolerated if you can save £50 or more on a short-haul flight to anywhere in Europe.
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