The single biggest reason ime for passengers kicking off on a flight is the reclining (or not) of a seat. I had one just the other day - passenger in front bloody-mindedly wanted to recline their seat through the meal service, passenger behind threatened to punch them in the head if they did. Both passengers unreasonable, disruptive passenger warning letter prepared (but ultimately not given out, because they grew up) for both of them.
However, it is normal plane etiquette to wait until the meal service is over before reclining.
@Belladonna90 if you are wanting plane etiquette tips here, here’s another one - fasten up your seatbelt over the outside of your blanket and the cabin crew will not disturb you if you are resting. You don’t need a little sticker. Blanket over head = just weird, or Michael Jackson’s kid. You can get some great eyeshades these days which you’ll get your money’s worth from if you are as frequent a traveller as you think you are, even better, you can also get very supportive inflatable sleep cushions that have a built in blackout hood. Use one of these, and you’ll be able to fasten your seatbelt over your blanket, block out the light, AND keep your head in a comfy position whilst sleeping in an upright position. Triple bonus!
Regarding the meal service timings. Firstly, there are always 2 meals on a long haul service. It doesn’t matter what the local time at departure or local time at arrival are - you’ll be served something about an hour after take off and again an hour before landing. On an overnight flight this will be a full dinner to begin with, and then a breakfast just before we land. These meals are served because many passengers do not have the opportunity to eat before the flight, and because there can be a lot of connecting passengers. JFK is a massive transfer hub, passengers could be connecting in from all over the place on some very long earlier flights indeed. Eg A passenger transferring from a West Coast flight might not have anything to eat since breakfast time on their body clock.
Regarding the timings, I’m a little surprised the meal was served 3 hours into the flight. A JFK overnight flight is usually about 6hrs 40mins from take off to landing. Cabin crew generally get a break mid flight after the first meal service is collected in but before the second meal service. They are reluctant to reduce their rest times by delaying meal services. The first meals are often loaded into the ovens on the ground, and the ovens switched on during pushback, in order that the first meals are ready about 45 mins after take off. A meal cannot be served to a passenger after it has been more than 4 hrs since it was put in the oven. This is an absolute no-no, and I’ve seen entire aircraft full of passengers go without meals after an engineering fault caused a return to stand. So I would imagine giving out meals 3 hours after take off would be a bit close to the limit, and not done.
And about buying a Club ticket at short notice - it is always possible to buy a Club seat at short notice, the question is not so much ‘have you ever tried to buy one,’ more a question of ‘can you afford it?’ BA have 8 flights a day from JFK to Heathrow, 1 a day to Gatwick, 2 more to Heathrow from Newark, and code share with at least 4 American Airlines JFK-LHR. There are club seats available on all 15 of these services today. British Airways operations between New York and London is the world’s first ‘billion dollar route.’ There is always capacity to book a Club seat at short notice - BA passengers rely on this.
Finally @londonmummy1966 - are you my disruptive passenger from a few months back who behaved appallingly from check in till the minute she was told she would be unlikely to be permitted to travel with the airline again? The one who justified all her poor behaviour with ‘all of my mummy friends do this……’ In my very considerable experience in aviation, including the airline you are uncomplimentary about, the only misogyny I have seen has been by passengers towards staff. Any crew member caught treating ANY passenger disrespectfully would be pulled up on it immediately with dire consequences for the crew member. So many passengers think it is acceptable to film crew members on their phones (include the ‘mummy friends’ one mentioned above) and post it online that it is quite literally more than their job is worth for any crew member to be disrespectful, let alone prejudiced against an entire subsection of their passengers. I would politely suggest that this has not happened.