British Airways introduced an entirely new concept in World Traveller at the end of 1998. One of the strangest elements were the double deck meal trays for economy class passengers, which have to be seen to be believed.
All of this was under the banner of Project Utopia, which introduced the world tails livery at the same time. Seems like it wasn’t just the aircraft colours that were quickly rejected and changed.
Whatever Next?
The video is rather amusingly called “Whatever next?” and is to introduce the changes to cabin crew. Looking at it through the lens of 2023, I wonder what will come next when ideas like this were able to gain traction. As it’s from the late 1990s, the commercial Internet was still developing, hence why telephone check-in is mentioned as a thing, which I had no idea about.
Happily the end shows the brand new ergonomically designed slimline seat, which I have flown and found very comfortable. All passengers were getting their own seat back screens and when you see them it brings back memories of just how small they were. Still, considering that beforehand you had one big screen for an entire cabin, it was a major step up.
Double Deck Trays
Perhaps the most astonishing new element of the service are the double deck meal trays they were planning to use in economy class. How anyone thought this was a good idea is beyond me. While I applaud the reusable dish for the hot main element, the rest is rather strange.
Unfortunately, the crew in the video come across as insincere when talking about the new trays, which hardly inspires confidence. Totally bizarre! It gets worse with the snack bar on shelves, especially when they mention they are developing a net to stop the food falling off in turbulence.
Overall Thoughts
I’m all for innovation and new ideas, but the double deck meal trays really are the strangest idea. I can’t see how that enhanced the service or provided a better experience for passengers.
Having a look at the comments, it seems they only lasted half a year or so before they were withdrawn. Looks like both the passengers and crew hated them. Still fun to see some ideas from the past where an airline was actively trying to enhance the economy class experience.
Did you ever fly on British Airways when these double deck trays were in service? What were they like? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by A J Best on Airliners.net.
Perhaps an unpopular viewpoint here but since BA was actually serving people a fairly large amount of food the idea has some merit, at least on paper. After all, tray tables just aren’t that large so an innovative stacking system might be a viable workaround. I do think that some extensive field testing would be prudent before rolling out the system.
I see your point, but as soon as they removed the second tier and placed it to the right of the main tray, you can see that it all fits on the aircraft tray table, so logically you’d just increase the size of the underlying tray. That’s before you get into the logistics of having to put it back together and so on. It’s an idea, that’s for sure!
Late 90s such a strange time there, the dreadful ‘colours of the world’ livery diminishing the Union Jack. And those uniforms…nothing British about them.
But that’s a nice economy meal.
I really loved the world tails, they were something really different. It probably would have gone down better had they done half the fleet in world tails and half with the Union Flag design we have today, best of both worlds. Agreed, the food looks nice!
Ah, the 90s. Such optimism with such bad ideas. That video is pure gold.
Haha! I know, it really is something else!