After nearly two months of subpar meals, missing items, and improvised service, American Airlines says it has finally fixed its London Heathrow catering mess.
American Airlines Finally Fixes Heathrow Catering Meltdown
American Airlines has restored normal catering on its London Heathrow (LHR) flights after a chaotic period that saw meals downgraded across all cabins and food flown in from the United States. The problem dates back to late February, when aviation insider JonNYC first flagged that American had abruptly stopped catering flights locally in London after an undisclosed issue with its dnata catering partner.
Without a local catering provider, American resorted to “double provisioning” flights from the United States, with all food for both the outbound and return journeys was loaded in the U.S.
That workaround quickly led to noticeable service cuts:
- Reduced meal choices
- No pre-ordered meals
- Elimination of premium items like ice cream and certain entrees
- Simplified service even in business and first class
It was not sustainable, especially on some of American’s most important and lucrative transatlantic routes.
Even as AA struck a temporary deal with DO & CO to cater its flights, that only covered the first meal in premium cabins. Until today, economy class meals and some elements of the premium economy, business, and first class service.
> Read More: American Airlines Heathrow Catering Chaos Continues
New Catering Provider Brings Stability…For Now
American has now secured a catering agreement with DO & CO, which will take over provisioning at Heathrow.
Starting April 22, flights will once again be fully catered locally in London across all cabins. Per JonNYC:
There will be a short transition period where some flights are still double provisioned as a backup, but the expectation is that normal service will quickly resume, including special meals and pre-orders in premium cabins.
This is a significant improvement and long overdue.
The root cause still remains murky. There were widely circulated concerns about sanitation at the facility, including reports of a rodent issue, though those claims were never definitively confirmed and were strongly denied by dnata.
Whatever the trigger, it must have been very serious to warrant such a poor execution. Cutting a major catering contract at one of the airline’s most important hubs without a seamless transition plan is the kind of operational failure that should not happen absent a situation so grave that at least we should have been given an explanation.
I’m sure flight attendants are relieved…
> Read More: American Flight Attendants Want More Pay On London Flights…But The Case Is Weak
CONCLUSION
American Airlines has finally fixed its Heathrow catering problem, restoring a normal onboard experience on one of its most important international networks.
For nearly two months, passengers on flagship transatlantic routes received a noticeably degraded product, not because of weather or strikes, but because of a breakdown in planning (though AA does not necessarily hold all the blame).
Finally! Better late than never!
Let’s add that for passengers and partner airlines, DO & CO is often considered “top of the pile.”
Good news but this is still not ‘fixed’. The lack of being able to pre-order was not great, and still no pre-orders for a few weeks, and even then no pre-orders for main cabin? AA was good about offering miles proactively during the last few months if you were flying from LHR though. The Do&Co catering is of course good. But I personally wouldn’t touch anything that was double provisioned. And the FAs have been more surly than usual from LHR (and it felt like they actively didn’t work the flight from LHR that I was on other than the meal service) – some sentence about thanking them for grace and professionalism will do nothing, they need to offer these folks some incentive to actually work these premium TATL flights.
The worst part is that they acknowledge that this is still a temporary arrangement. So they’re likely ultimately going to ditch Do&Co, unless I’m reading that part wrong.
It’s getting better, but again, not sure I read this memo as anything being ‘fixed’.
My flight with AA on LHR-JFK is in July on the 789. Looking forward to finally trying out the Flagship Suite. Hopefully this is even more resolved by then.
So potentially the best meals on AA will be on flights out of LHR…
I’d imagine it’s still more about the budget than the caterer, even DO & CO.
I concur.
Incidentally, the AA jet featured in the article’s photo is an A321-200 with an average age of 11.1 years.
How is the relevant to the topic?
In the meantime, an AA jet avoids midair collision with AC aircraft at JFK Airport → https://abcnews.com/video/132255190/
I can’t image the union will be pleased with this. I can see another grievance coming up.
Seems to me they’re never happy with anything. You could offer their members a 100% payrise for working half their curren duty hours and the Union would still find something to bitch about.
And throughout the time of the AA mess, DNATA continued to cater its other contracted airlines to their usual standard. As that includes Singapore Airlines at LHR, I would doubt there was anything at all wrong with the DNATA facility and this is an ‘American’ problem.
Could be…but it’s all so strange. Hopefully we will get the full story one day.