Qantas Low fat meals?

[serfty]

OK, fine. Is this the line that is spun by checkin staff? To me that sounds like a total copout.

It makes no sense whatsoever to deny someone an op-up because of a request for a special meal.

Hey John, just for a minute put yourself in Qantas' shoes.

1) Logistically, notice for special meals in any class needs to be sent to the caterer well before the flight's departure. Otherwise the expense may outweigh any value to the carrier. Certainly for SPMLs in WHY.

2) When an op up is required, the PAX is not always accessible to accept/refuse the lack of their SPML if they might be a candidate for an op-up.

I'll give you a perfect example in regard to my second ever, and to this date best, op up.

I checked in 0600 at FCO for the first leg of my FCO-LHR-BKK itinerary that day. I was given two BP's, the second for QF2 in the left hand front row bulkhead WHY window seat on QF 744 in those days). I had no SPML requests back then.

I arrived at LHR and promptly, as a oneWORLD emerald, attended the F lounge (these days it's the 'Concorde' lounge and I'm unlikely to see it again). Was there for about 15 minutes before boarding.

On boarding, my 23A BP was spat out and I was reassigned 11J. Hey I was happy; SPMLs were the furtherest thing from my mind.

Consider this, Qantas did know where I was other than somewhere between the incoming Rome flight in T1 and and the QF2 gate at T4; LHR's a big place and my BP was not scanned on entry to the Flounge (quite normal back then). If I had a special meal request and they had selected me for an op-up they would have to expend extra effort to find me and get me to agree to the op-up without a SPML. If they could not locate me it would be left to the gate staff; who have a lot to do, let alone getting an OP-upped SPML request PAX to sign a disclaimer releasing the carrier for any liability.

The reality that almost all would forego a SPML for an op-up is not a factor. SPMLs are provided BECAUSE they are important to people; for some it's literally a life or death situation, for others it's literally life after death.

Knowing the above I asked for & retained a LFML request in my profile as an QF SG; my reasoning being it would not make much difference given most op-ups go to WPs.

I cleared any SPML request once I attained WP.

 

[Altair]

I received an op-up when I had a special meal requested.
When I was in the aircraft my meal did not appear. I asked about it and the F/A said she could get the meal from WHY and plate it up with the J dishes or if there was a menu choice that I was happy with it I could have that instead. I chose something form the menu as that appeared to have something that I could eat.
Other times whenever I have been issued new BP, for change of seats not upgrade, or my flight has been changed, my meal never shows up.

 

[NM]

To me, it makes perfect sense. If someone has requested a special meal of some description, then there should be a good reason ( other than "I wanted to get my meal 1st" ) and given that the airline has had sufficient notice to provide it, there is an onus on them to do so.

This is certainly true for domestic flights. However, for international flights the business class menu generally has sufficient variety to cater for some dietary requirements such as Low Fat. So I would expect that someone who pre-ordered a Low Fat meal when booking an economy seat could eat satisfactorily from the standard international business class menu.

Maybe not the case for some other special meal requirements.

 

[serfty]

I used to have LFMLs until I found that they severely reduced the already remote chances of an op-up. ...

For Qantas Op-ups are generally a last resort and those with SPML requests can indeed get them, but generally are at the back of the queue.

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

It makes no sense whatsoever to deny someone an op-up because of a request for a special meal.

I don't think it is a matter of denying an op-up, but rather if an op-up is needed and there are multiple candidates (normally would be the case) they will chose someone else since that is the easiest thing for them to do.

 

[JohnK]

I don't think it is a matter of denying an op-up, but rather if an op-up is needed and there are multiple candidates (normally would be the case) they will chose someone else since that is the easiest thing for them to do.

Understand what has been discussed. Maybe my wording should have been "It makes no sense whatsoever to not consider someone for an op-up because of a request for a special meal". I am glad that some people have posted that they have in fact received op-ups even with request for special meal.

If some checkin/gate agents feel that it is easier to ignore op-ups for special meal requests then so be it. I don't have a special meal request but based on the number of op-ups received versus the number of flights taken in the last 3 years it would be a good idea if I included a request for a low fat meal on my profile so that I would be one of the first served in economy.