020
Photo taken by: Marcelo
Flying from: London LHR to Amsterdam AMS, 4 June 2000
Meal type: snack lunch Sandwiches
Drink: beer
Comments: nasty
Ratings: 0

017-019
Photo taken by: Howard Long

017-019
Photo taken by: Howard Long

017-019
Photo taken by: Howard Long
Flying from: Edinburgh (EDI) to London (LHR), 2 May 2003
Flight duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Aircraft type & class: A320, Business
Meal type: Lunch - Beaf casserole with dumpling & mash, dried apricots, chocolate bar
Drink: Champagne Delcaves NV, coffee
Comments: "Despite appearances, the beef casserole tasted quite good. The dried apricots were awful, and one passenger had to get the crew to open the packet. Cheese is still missed. The infamous exploding milk container is illustrated, and did its best to spit all over me when I opened it, necessitating my glasses to be wiped clean, although I managed to avoid requiring dry cleaning of my suit and tie on this occasion. How long will BMI keep this awful picnic box idea going?"
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 6 for the taste, 2 for the presentation, 6 for the service, 0 for the picnic idea

015-016
Photo taken by: Howard Long

015-016
Photo taken by: Howard Long
Flying from: London Heathrow (LHR) to Edinburgh (EDI), 30 April 2003
Flight duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Aircraft type & class: A321, Business
Meal type: Breakfast - Sausage panini, tomato ketchup, raspberry yoghurt with cereal bits
Drink: Orange Juice, Tea
Comments: The awful picnic style pervades. Take a look at the innards of that panini - hardly the 'quality, nutritious' item they'd have you believe in their marketing. I believe I have finally figured how to open the box now, although it's hardly obvious or perfect. Tasted OK though. Service was singularly non-eventful. To make matters worse I fell for the oldest trick in the book opening the yogurt and the milk. Under reduced external pressure, despite ever so careful opening procedure, both exploded all over my suit and tie as the foil was peeled back. How many times has that happened to me? Someone must be able to rethink the packaging of these things!
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 7 for the taste, 2 for the presentation, 7 for the service, 0 for the picnic idea

014
Photo taken by: Howard Long
Flying from: Glasgow GLA to London LHR, 18 March 2003
Flight duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Aircraft type & class: A320, Business
Meal type: Dinner - Chicken korma curry with rice and naan bread, grapes, chocolate bar
Drink: Bloody Mary, Champagne (Delcaves NV)
Comments: "My worst fears are confirmed. The picnic concept is alive and kicking across the board on all BMI flights in Business Class. On a busy flight you would struggle to eat anything because the box itself actually gets in the way when trying to arrange your meal on the tray table. You need a lot of space. The food itself was OK in its own way but not at all special and WHERE IS THE CHEESE? I had a delightful conversation with one of the FA's who explained that the concept was to spend the money on the food at the expense of things like the china crockery. If the food actually did taste better I might agree. But it did not. Dessert is replaced by simple grapes, the Fererro Rocher chocolate with a small KitKat and there is no cheese plate. I couldn't tell any change in the quality of the main meal, except for the obvious that it is served in its tin foil container without any china crockery. Call me old fashioned, but bring back the crockery."
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 7 for the taste, 2 for the presentation, 9 for the service, 0 for the idea

013
Photo taken by: Howard Long
Flying from: London LHR to Glasgow GLA, 18 March 2003
Flight duration: 1 hour 20 minutes
Aircraft type & class: Fokker 100, Business
Meal type: Breakfast - Yogurt & cereal, warm bacon panini
Drink: Fresh orange juice, tea
Comments: Oh dear! What has BMI done? Not at all impressive. Breakfast in BMI's Business Class is served like a picnic with a toasted sandwich. I don't know the reasoning behind this move (OK, wild guess: it's cheaper, and needs fewer FAs to distribute it quickly on the plane). Well it did taste reasonable, but I'm digusted at this appalling drop in standards when compared to the proper cooked breakfast that used to be served. To make matters worse, you need instructions on how to use the picnic box. Sadly, the first set of instructions I found were hidden in the bottom of the box, so by the time I found them it was too late and there were salt/pepper/sugar sachets, a ketchup sachet, yogurt, tea, orange juice, napkins, cutlery and bacon panini overflowing onto my lap. I later discovered that there is
another set of instructions hidden inside the outer sleeve. Perhaps they should announce the correct way to use the picnic box when they do the safety briefing. Luckily there was a comment card so I made my feelings felt. If anyone from BMI is reading this, forget this picnic idea. A good breakfast in BC is one of the main reasons that I normally only travel BMI domestically. This picnic is cheap. And trying to open the box made me look stupid (and I don't need any help from an airline to do that, thank you).
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 7 for the taste, 2 for the presentation, 2 for the service, 0 for the idea

012
Photo taken by: Julian Lorkin
Flying from: Palma PMI to London LHR, 17 November 2002
Class: Business, A320
Meal type: Lunch - Chilli beans in a chilli sauce, with various undestinguised mushy things around it. A salad with carrot and iceberg lettuce. A small pot of industrial dressing. A cheese plate with three types of cheese, a slice of apple a slice of pineapple, and five grapes, two biscuits, a roll and a tub of butter.
Drink: A bottle of Delcaves Champagne Brut.
Comments: "Yuck. This meal is foul. bmi should be rightly ashamed of serving this up if it was delievered in economy... but in business class ! The chilli wass rubbery, hot, with a plastic flavour, and just not worth serving. In some places it was even spot welded to the plastic dish. The salad is dry without flavour. Only the cheese and the pineapple on the cheese plate makes up for it."
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): Zero! (Another reason to riot!)

011
Photo taken by: Julian Lorkin
Flying from: London LHR to Palma PMI, 15 November 2002
Class: A320 Business
Meal type: Lunch - Two slices of turkey, two dobs of reconstituted potato, four strips of carrots, three beans, and a gravy sauce. A salad with one olive, six chunks of celery, three peppers and two rocket leaves. MonteVibianno Salad dressing in a lovely small glass pot. A plate with two slices of cheese and three tomatoes plus an olive and two more sticks of celery, two buiscuits, a roll, and a tub of butter.
Drink: A bottle of Delcaves Champagne Brut.
Comments: "Definately the meal of choice, this is the best that bmi provide in any class. Indeed if it was in economy I'd be pretty impressed, but its in business... ah. There is an all pervasive taste of plastic, and its kind of like what airline food, meal, catering was like 20 years ago! Still its a good bit of nosh for a two hour flight, the turkey is a nice variation on the chicken of most flights, and the salad was edible (thats a pretty good compliment for bmi food, meal, catering)."
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 4

010
Photo taken by: Fabio M. Zambelli
Flying from: London LHR to Milan LIN, 24 November 2002
Class: Economy
Meal type: Lunch - poor but not bad
Drink: Any 1 little soda (probably 2 if you ask)
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 5

009
Photo taken by: Fabio M. Zambelli
Flying from: Milan LIN to London LHR, 20 November 2002
Class: economy
Meal type: lunch - poor but not bad
Drink: any 1 little soda (probably 2 if you ask)
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 5

008
Photo taken by: Fabio M. Zambelli
Flying from: Milan LIN to London LHR, 20 November 2002
Class: Economy
Meal type: Lunch - poor but not bad
Drink: Any 1 little soda (probably 2 if you ask)
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 5

007
Photo taken by: The Adventure Girls (www.theadventuregirls.com)
Flying from: London LHR to Manchester MAN, 17 November 2002
Class: Economy
Meal type: Snack - Biscuit
Drink: Water
Comments: "I asked for the chocolate biscuit as I had seen it in the tray, although it wasn’t being offered to anybody. Pretty dubious food, meal, catering from a “full service” airline."
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 2 because I got the Club biscuit

006
Photo taken by: Julian Lorkin / www.airreview.com
Flying from: London LHR to Edinburgh EDI, 1 September 2002
Class: Economy
Meal type: Lunch - One packet of 12 peanuts.
Drink: Two bottles of Delcave's Champagne Brut. Pretty drinkable stuff. Plus a gin and tonic, and a Jameson's whisky and Ginger.
Comments: "BMI have scrapped inflight meals for all economy flights, even for those to Europe of 2 and a half hours in duration, but the bar is still free - as a result I've never seen so much boozing on a flight!"
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 4 (hick!)

005
Photo taken by: David White
Flying from: Manchester MAN to London LHR, 21 October 2002
Class: Economy
Meal type: Breakfast - Choice of Bacon Panini or Omelette Panini
Drink: Orange Juice
Comments: "A reasonably good breakfast sandwich, served warm. Nothing special, but nice and filling for early-morning travelers."
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 7

004
Photo taken by: John Chu
Flying from: London LHR to Edinburgh EDI, 5 August 2002
Class: Economy
Meal type: Snack - Mixed bag of cookies and crackers
Drink: Pepsi and Grapfruit Juice
Comments: "Didn't eat the snack, but, pleased the flight crew offer a third drink (not pictured) on the second round."
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 5

003
Photo taken by: Julian Lorkin
Flying from: London LHR to Edinburgh EDI, 30 August 2002
Class: Economy
Meal type: Lunch - One packet of two stem ginger biscuits. Nice and crunchy.
Drink: BMI have a choice of two wines - white or red. Both are Castello MonteVibianno. The white is an Grechetto. The red is a Cabanet Sauvignon. Both were drinkable, if not paticularly exciting. But then again the ticket only cost £25, so I can't complain.
Comments: "BMI have scrapped inflight meals for economy for all internal UK flights, and European short haul."
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 3

002
Photo taken by: Kar-lok Wong
Flying from: London LHR to Amsterdam AMS, 14 August 2002
Class: economy
Meal type: Snack
Drink: Orange Juice
Comments: "Better then nothing."
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): 6

001
Photo taken by: John Chu
Flying from: London to Edinburgh, August 2001
Class: Economy
Meal type: Breakfast - Sausage with eggs and tomato.
Comments: "The most disgusting airline food I have ever laid my eyes on."
Rating 1-10 (worst-best): Zero! A reason to riot!
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