BA to adopt 'dine on demand' in Club World business class?

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."

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David Flynn

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.