British Airways Passengers Served KFC on Transatlantic Flight to London

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Social media is running wild with this British Airways story and bashing the airline when in fact, I think the crew should be commended. RELATED: 12 Things in Travel You Need to Know Today

According to the Evening Standard, “Passengers on a 12-hour British Airways flight to London Heathrow were left dismayed when they were served KFC following a catering mishap. The plane had been taking passengers from Turks and Caicos to Heathrow, via the Bahamas, when “unforeseen circumstances” meant the flight’s normal meal service was unavailable. Passengers were reportedly told an issue with the plane’s refrigeration system meant the food overheated and was unsafe.

Here’s video of the flight attendants handing out the tasty fried chicken using tongs.

According to a passenger, Piper Hanchell (@Hanchell), in 10B, “The screw up happened in NAS with the catering.” Piper said, “I was on that flight and it originated in Providenciales (PLS). My seat number was 10B and my wife was 10A. The catering from NAS to LHR was always to be loaded in NAS and not Providenciales.”

I don’t know about you but I’d much rather eat KFC than food that isn’t safe. I also prefer to get to my destination on time rather than have my flight severely delayed or worse, canceled. According to FlightAware.com, the flight from NAS to LHR was just 54 minutes delayed. See screenshot below.

If your flight is cancelled, that means you could be stuck for days as most flights in 2023 are going out at 100% capacity. There’s just no room to put passengers. And if you’re like me, who likes to have certain seats (here are 8 hacks for getting the best coach seats on a plane), then you would definitely appreciate not being stuck in a middle seat – especially on a long flight.

But not all passengers feel the same way. Here’s a tweet from Andrew Bailey (@aktivandrew) who writes: “@British_Airways just landed @HeathrowAirport after a 12.5 hour flight BA252 from Turks and Caicos with no catering! BA had to serve @kfc at Nassau giving some lucky passengers 1 piece of chicken. The container with the plane catering wasn’t chilled so all thrown away!!”

@British_Airways just landed @HeathrowAirport after a 12.5 hour flight BA252 from Turks and Caicos with no catering! BA had to serve @kfc at Nassau giving some lucky passengers 1 piece of chicken. The container with the plane catering wasn’t chilled so all thrown away!! pic.twitter.com/U5IcBD2hRy

— Andrew Bailey (@aktivandrew) July 24, 2023

Luke Stewart (@TheRadBeagle88) sees my side of the story. He replied to Andrew with: “They were in a tricky situation so they adapted and improvised. They could have just not fed you.”

Now don’t get me wrong: If an airline had this kind of refrigeration problem, I would expect some kind of goodwill in the form of a travel voucher for my next trip. I think it all depends on which class of service you’re in and from what I can see from the photos posted online, even business class passengers were served KFC. Since they paid more for their tickets and are expected to get better food than economy, they should get more money (or credit) back. Or at least frequent flier miles deposited into their account.

One of the takeaways from this story, and a tip I’ve been preaching for decades, is to always bring your own snacks (and drinks) on the plane. You don’t want to be at the mercy of the flight attendants if there’s a long delay and you don’t want to be out of luck if the airline runs out of food or your desired selection. This story adds yet another reason to have some of your own food on hand – in case the refrigeration system breaks down.

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