Another QF catering fail

[mannej]

Agreed! This is exactly why a vegan meal is not an acceptable offering to a vegetarian meal order

I would agree if you had Vegan and Vegetarian the other way around, but IMHO this is being precious.

 

[pythonisman]

ON the basis of this the airlines should just serve one meal: a vegan meal as it covers everything.

Of note, IME over the last 3 years or so, most full service EU airlines now offer two meal choices: one VGML and one with meat (often ham). This solves the issue for most pax and saves on the range of special meals that need to be loaded etc

Honestly, as long as it wasn't something congealed and neglected, I'd be perfectly happy with a vegan meal as a single choice for all. There are endless good choices, dals, curries, salads etc etc.
But I'm not a fussy eater- as long as it's of reasonable quality and it's tasty, I'm happy. I'm sure there'd be outrage if that was chosen as an actual way forward for any airline from plenty of people though!

If we had a 2 choice meat or vego/vegan and they focused on quality meals, I would be happy (and choose whatever sounded, or smelled better).

I didn't mean to offend or belittle the special meal requests in any way...

 

[medhead]

To provide a counterpoint - on the 1950 ADL-MEL tonight - the lamb curry with naan bread was delicious. Best domestic Y meal I've ever head - actually edible and quite tasty. Somewhat unusually the CSM even announced the meal choices on the PA. Well done ADL catering team!

They've been doing announcements for a couple of months, IME.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

They've been doing announcements for a couple of months, IME.

I feel like its been announced as long as the dinner box has existed

 

[Captain hum]

Everything except flavour and texture that is

Agreed! This is exactly why a vegan meal is not an acceptable offering to a vegetarian meal order

Utter tosh. We eat fantastic meals in our house. A vegan meal is a perfectly acceptable offering to a vegetarian IMO. Not every meal needs dairy or eggs.

 

[Foreigner]

I would agree if you had Vegan and Vegetarian the other way around, but IMHO this is being precious.

You're right. Vegans take vegetarian diet a step further by shunning all animal products.

 

[katiebell]

Utter tosh. We eat fantastic meals in our house. A vegan meal is a perfectly acceptable offering to a vegetarian IMO. Not every meal needs dairy or eggs.

I agree that this is possible and not every meal needs any particular ingredient at all. In my experience in more than a decade of ordering so-called so-called VLML meals on aircraft the quality of the substituted VGML meals, whatever the label stuck on the box is really really poor. In addition, the 'whitener' for coffee and margarine are not acceptable substitutes for the real things, and the box handed out on short domestic routes in the evening is the same every flight and not at all palatable.

 

[JessicaTam]

An update. A had a call from Natalia from customer care yesterday to give me the results of their investigation. They found that my J meal was not loaded as it looked like the upgrade did not have enough time to carry my preference from Y to J. I explained that the upgrade was processed 3 weeks before the flight. She also said that my Y meal was not loaded either. She was then a little confused as to why the Y preference would not have carried through to the J booking.

Natalia was certainly apologetic, and advised that the 'team' are aware of my future bookings this year and would make sure it wouldn't happen again. I explained that that is exactly what I had been told in the past, including earlier this year, and that I did not have much faith in that statement. Natalia was not sure what else to do to make sure catering was loaded. Particularly as it had happened more than once. I suggested she make me CL, but she admitted that was above her pay grade.

Natalia offered me 10k points which I initially declined as "I can't eat points", but she said she was going to deposit them into my account anyway. At least they cover the cost of the J upgrade.

I would like to think that my future flights will run to plan, but ...

 

[blackcat20]

An update. A had a call from Natalia from customer care yesterday to give me the results of their investigation. They found that my J meal was not loaded as it looked like the upgrade did not have enough time to carry my preference from Y to J. I explained that the upgrade was processed 3 weeks before the flight. She also said that my Y meal was not loaded either. She was then a little confused as to why the Y preference would not have carried through to the J booking.

Natalia was certainly apologetic, and advised that the 'team' are aware of my future bookings this year and would make sure it wouldn't happen again. I explained that that is exactly what I had been told in the past, including earlier this year, and that I did not have much faith in that statement. Natalia was not sure what else to do to make sure catering was loaded. Particularly as it had happened more than once. I suggested she make me CL, but she admitted that was above her pay grade.

Natalia offered me 10k points which I initially declined as "I can't eat points", but she said she was going to deposit them into my account anyway. At least they cover the cost of the J upgrade.

I would like to think that my future flights will run to plan, but ...

Sounds a bit like "I dont have a proper answer but I'm going to try and make you feel better".... 3 weeks is more than enough time to ensure the correct meal is loaded.

 

[boomy]

So you received a poor excuse, followed by an apology and then some points were thrown at your direction.
Sounds like the typical response QF use for almost every complaint out there. Much easier to talk nicely and hand out some cheap points every time instead of addressing the problems and trying to solve them.

 

[JessicaTam]

So you received a poor excuse, followed by an apology and then some points were thrown at your direction.
Sounds like the typical response QF use for almost every complaint out there. Much easier to talk nicely and hand out some cheap points every time instead of addressing the problems and trying to solve them.

I do think that Natalia genuinely tried to find out what had happened.

 

[Hvr]

<snip>

Natalia offered me 10k points which I initially declined as "I can't eat points", but she said she was going to deposit them into my account anyway. At least they cover the cost of the J upgrade.

I would like to think that my future flights will run to plan, but ...

While you can't eat points at least you'll have another chance to veg out in J. Hopefully with an appropriate meal.

 

[opusman]

Natalia was not sure what else to do to make sure catering was loaded. Particularly as it had happened more than once. I suggested she make me CL, but she admitted that was above her pay grade.

Natalia offered me 10k points which I initially declined as "I can't eat points", but she said she was going to deposit them into my account anyway. At least they cover the cost of the J upgrade.

This sort of situation is where many organisations' customer service recovery falls down. A recurring systemic issue is never addressed because no one with any authority to do anything about it is ever involved.

Of course there's nothing Natalia could do personally to make sure catering is loaded, but no one is expecting her to. Throwing points at the problem doesn't do anything to solve it. Instead, an appropriate response would be "This issue is being referred to the director of catering and he/she will get back to you with some information about how this problem will be addressed in the future."

Of course, never going to happen because it's not actually viewed as a problem.

 

[kermatu]

I suggested she make me CL, but she admitted that was above her pay grade.

I wonder how she'd have reacted to lifetime platinum instead?

 

[JessicaTam]

I wonder how she'd have reacted to lifetime platinum instead?

I have left room to negotiate down next time.