Catering Issue Prompts British Airways to Serve KFC Onboard
Article originally published to AeroXplorer.com by Adam Schupak.
On a recent long-haul flight, class divisions disappeared as flight attendants onboard a British Airways flight were forced to serve food from the fast-food chain "Kentucky Fried Chicken" (KFC) due to an apparent catering issue that occurred immediately before the flight.?
British Airways Flight 252?
On Sunday, July 23, a British Airways Boeing 777-200ER (G-VIIN) was preparing to perform its scheduled return back to London-Heathrow from Providenciales (PLS) when the pilots and crew of the flight received bad news.
Prior to the flight, the catering carts containing passengers' meals (in all classes) and drinks were not properly chilled. This meant that should the catering carts have been loaded on board the BA flight, all passengers eating food originating from the carts would be at risk of food poisoning due to ingredients possibly spoiling.?
Upon being notified of this issue, the flight was almost ready to depart back to London (LHR) via a short stop-over in Nassau (NAS). This forced the cabin crew of the flight to devise a creative solution before the flight took off. Through British Airways, the cabin crew ordered dozens of buckets of fried chicken from a KFC franchise restaurant on the island of Nassau, so that when flight 252 landed in the Bahamas, there would at least be some food served on board.?
While passengers were aware of the catering issue from the beginning of the flight at Providenciales, they were uncertain of whether or not they would be given any food or refreshments during the eight-hour flight back to London.?
Flight Attendants Serving KFC and Passengers' Reaction?
?Shortly after takeoff, the first and only meal service — if one can even call it that — began. The flight attendants in both the business and economy class cabins came around handing out one piece of KFC chicken to each passenger. To add insult to injury, many passengers who were onboard the flight have alleged that British Airways did not provide any refreshments onboard the flight either.?
The reactions of passengers on-board the flight during and after the ordeal have mostly been negative towards British Airways.
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?"BA are right up there with a budget airlines begging with the letter R that I refuse to fly with due to atrocious customer services!!!" states Twitter user wheres_wally27 who was apparently on the flight.?
?"Laughable...People with medical conditions left without any food or proper refreshments," KeepinUpW'Soghmanian tweeted in regard to the incident.
According to British Airways, once flight 252 had landed in London (LHR), passengers were supposedly offered compensation in the form of waivers, but according to many passengers who were on board the flight, no such compensation or waivers were received.?
On-Time Departure vs. Delaying the Flight
While not having proper catering on board a long-haul transatlantic flight is a major inconvenience, it was not worth the extra time and money for both passengers connecting onwards in London (LHR) and British Airways to delay the flight.
While situations such as this one are a rare occurrence in the commercial aviation industry, they are a rather small issue due to it not having any real effect on the operation of a flight besides boosting passenger comfort. However, for eight hours, little-to-no food is definitely rough.
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