VA Meal Service

[Shano]

Overhead a FA yesterday telling a colleague that as of next week (24th?) VA are abandoning the practice of handing out the flexi meals before serving pay-as-you-go passengers. Anyone else heard similar?

So it seems that service will now be a single pass through the cabin.

Given that not many passengers seem to buy F&B on VA flights shouldn't be too much of an issue for those on flexi fares that choose to eat the LM offerings.

 

[AIRwin]

I believe all meals are complimentary on the larger A332 Coast-to-Coast services anyway, so I don't think this change would have too big an impact on passengers who are entitled to their meals on their flexi fares on the smaller B738 aircrafts...

 

[oz_mark]

Overhead a FA yesterday telling a colleague that as of next week (24th?) VA are abandoning the practice of handing out the flexi meals before serving pay-as-you-go passengers. Anyone else heard similar?

They may have reviewed their procedures and streamlined things a bit. 24th is the date they start rolling out the changes on the flights over 2hr45m. Not impossible that there are other changes such as mentioned.

 

[Monarch]

Overhead a FA yesterday telling a colleague that as of next week (24th?) VA are abandoning the practice of handing out the flexi meals before serving pay-as-you-go passengers. Anyone else heard similar?

So it seems that service will now be a single pass through the cabin.

Given that not many passengers seem to buy F&B on VA flights shouldn't be too much of an issue for those on flexi fares that choose to eat the LM offerings.

I do have a problem with this. Last Thursday on a mid-morning ADL-MEL, none of the Flexi fare passengers appeared listed as such for meal service from what I overheard from the FAs, and they had to trust those (like me) who asked for their meal when the trolley came by.

The problem was that by the time I was served a meal (and I was in row 7 or so), that there was little to time to comfortably consume it.

Under this new regime, Flexi passengers in further back zones will have less time to 'enjoy' the LM offerings. Surely walking the few meals out now as they do can't be that problematic, especially when these pax have paid the highest Y fares. (And yes, I have considered the counter-argument of higher status non-Flexi pax in the forward zones being served first!)

 

[KCMil]

One of the issues did seem to be as occured on my last SYD-MEL flight, full flight, even 8 in J, The crew looked stressed (not good), I asked if she was okay, she said they had 112 flexi meals to serve in a rush. By the time the cart came back to start the normal service we were not far from descent. Perhaps they are responding to a general increase in flexi fares and the often hear verbal complaints from non flexi passsengers wanting to know why they have been "forgotten".

 

[under the radar]

One of the issues did seem to be as occured on my last SYD-MEL flight, full flight, even 8 in J, The crew looked stressed (not good), I asked if she was okay, she said they had 112 flexi meals to serve in a rush. By the time the cart came back to start the normal service we were not far from descent. Perhaps they are responding to a general increase in flexi fares and the often hear verbal complaints from non flexi passsengers wanting to know why they have been "forgotten".

unfortunately i think the cabin crew will bear the brunt of the decisions of management/accountants!! VA still has an 'identity crisis' ...trying to attract/appeal to F/Fers..while at the same time trying to keep the 'low cost/budget' market...trying to cram '2 types of meal services into 1' ON THE SHORTEST SECTORS..will inevitably bring complaints .. its up to the pax to complain to VA ...cabin crew can only achieve so much in an allocated flight time!!

 

[Monarch]

One of the issues did seem to be as occured on my last SYD-MEL flight, full flight, even 8 in J, The crew looked stressed (not good), I asked if she was okay, she said they had 112 flexi meals to serve in a rush. By the time the cart came back to start the normal service we were not far from descent. Perhaps they are responding to a general increase in flexi fares and the often hear verbal complaints from non flexi passsengers wanting to know why they have been "forgotten".

QF manage to serve a breakfast/lunch/snack in their flights to the same destinations (and more) that VA fly to. Maybe VA need to start allocating Flexi fare pax to the forward zones, treating them as a virtual status, so guaranteed meal service can be confined to a smaller area of the cabin, thus helping to overcome this issue.

 

[toowongman]

Sooner or later VA will most likely emulate the QF inclusive meal service, giving everyone something equally as average. Problem solved.

 

[Bugalugz]

The stupid thing is in WA you get food for all sectors! I know this was because XR and QF did so to compete for Business from the major resource companies they didn't have a choice and I know for a fact one of their major contracts stipulated that food shall be provided so guess it was easier to make all the sectors full service.

Generally a sandwich and free soft drink. Can buy some more substantial stuff if it's available but instead of being half assed about it just make it fleet wide.

Then there's no confusion at all. Hell a sandwich or Pie and some coke product can't cost that bloody much. They really try and still have that element of LCC about them but you can't be both! This would be the final hurdle to making them a hell of a lot better than QF. Just a shame bout the IFE but we can deal with that I guess.