United Airlines is experiencing a catering meltdown in San Francisco. The airline is transitioning from Gate Gourmet to LSG Sky Chefs and the changeover began Thursday. There have been widespread problems including severely reduced food and beverage services, inadequate onboard provisions, and confusion among crew and passengers about what to expect.
While short domestic flights have been the most affected, transcon and international services have found themselves without meals as well. First class often receives just a basic snack box in place of hot meals. Some flights departed with no food at all, and beverages have been limited. Flights lack ice and may only offer bottled water.
The carrier appears to be attempting to notify passengers in advance – providing $15 vouchers to get food in the terminal – this often isn’t happening. Flight attendants shared frustrations-and embarrassment-online.
And where supplies exist, they may be getting delivered to planes in garbage sacks. Old catering carts from previous flights were being left uncleared.
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The airline’s flight attendants union issued an internal memo acknowledging the issues and warned staff that “additional catering or service modifications” might continue over the next few weeks as the new caterer ramps up operations. United had briefed them beforehand, promising contingency plans, but these plans have not been adequately implemented. (HT: Paddle Your Own Kanoo)
On some impacted flights, premium passengers received electronic travel certificates or mileage, but economy passengers saw inconsistent or minimal compensation. International travelers faced the prospect of going without food for long periods. One flight to Hong Kong reportedly departed with only economy class meals.
United passengers flying out of San Francisco should plan to bring food or purchase it inside the terminal as a contingency, rather than relying on airline catering.
blame sf instead of united. the city county has gone down. Most california has gone down
It surprises me how bad the SFO experience is for United flyers. This is ostensibly a UA hub and one of the wealthiest cities in the country specifically wealthy with young professionals that corporations really need to impress and retain so as to lock in that sweet sweet annual recurring revenue. Yet SFO lacks Touchless ID and has really bad UA clubs. Even the Polaris lounge is meh.
To clarify when I say really bad, I am not talking about the staff who are wonderful, the clubs themselves are just dated beyond belief and the food lags what is served in ORD and EWR.
The basement Terminal G Club is ghastly.
@ Don G — the “California has gone down” narrative is cope for losers like you who couldn’t make it in your career and had to retreat to flyover country. California’s coastal cities and suburbs are premier places to live, yes there are some issues but avoidable for those in the know and with the requisite wealth which you obviously do not have because you are a loser.
Management did a great job, in the transition.
The total lack of a catering transition & contingency plan and the inability to implement either at a key hub is Kirby’s. What does this guy do in his spare time? Ditto for his entire SMT.
“@ Don G — the “California has gone down” narrative is cope for losers like you who couldn’t make it in your career and had to retreat to flyover country. California’s coastal cities and suburbs are premier places to live, yes there are some issues but avoidable for those in the know and with the requisite wealth which you obviously do not have because you are a loser.”
@Unintimidated – Maybe non losers like myself were sick of the phony kindness and incessant tech talk acting like anyone gave a d@mn while crime and taxes skyrocketed in a once great but now ghetto city called SF.
> One flight to Hong Kong reportedly departed with only economy class meals.
This is why you never book on an American airline when going to Asia. This would have never happened on Cathay, they would have found a way to fix it, even if it costed them a lot of money. uS carriers have no respect for customers, and are completely fine if their bungled decisions affect passengers.
Just add flight attendants with piss poor attitudes and then you have AA!
Smart travelers know to fly Asian airlines to Asia.
This is a problem AT SFO but it’s not an SFO problem. It’s 100% a UAL problem. They chose to switch vendors and didn’t coordinate it properly. The new vendor is obviously scrambling to catch up.
UAL has a reponsibility to its customers — even on the soft product. A $15 voucher with a note to “pick up something in the terminal” is absurd. You can’t pick up food for an international flight — let alone two sandwiches — for $15.. And NO ICE? That’s a health hazard for not being able to maintain food and drink temp, and if a pax needs ice for medical reasons they cannot be accommodated.
I happen to think LSG (formerly Lufthansa Sky Group) is a great company. But the team on the ground doesn’t do ordering and stocking. That’s the back-office systems and it’s clearly a fail. The team on the ground does delivery and handoff, and if they’re using garbage bags obviously they weren’t allocated the resources to do their job. Again that’s a back-office failure.
Knowing both LSG SC and UAL I’d bet UAL dropped the ball on negotiating this vendor transition.
Sure, it’s at SFO, but it has nothing to do with SFO, the bay area, or whatever is up someone’s craw about norcal.
Looks like there was no preplanning for the catering switch. Good thing they aren’t running an airline!!!
Uh, I think Gary’s making a mountain out of a molehill here. Food and otherwise is just ‘fine’ from SFO as anywhere else with United (which, yeah, maybe isn’t ‘good enough’ or could simply be ‘better,’ and they should work on that). The only gripe I have about SFO is that the United Club in the international terminal doesn’t open until 7AM, so you need to go to the one in F if you have an earlier flight, which is not ‘fun’ if your gate is next door to it, but that really is nitpicking.
Thank you @Unintimidated for immediately shutting down @Don G’s negativity about San Francisco and the so-called failing ‘woke’ liberal ‘blue’ states and cities tired trope, which I can only assume comes from the 24/7 Fox/OAN/Newsmax right-wing TV, radio, and online echo chambers and propaganda networks. Rest assured, SF, LA, NYC, Chicago, etc., are each thriving in their own ways, as are many ‘red’ states, too. I do not understand why our fellow countrymen try to denigrate each other on here or elsewhere. It isn’t healthy. It’s not a rivalry. It’s just dumb. Be better folks.
@John L – there is a lot of phony kindness everywhere. I lived in the Midwest for 18 years and absolutely f-ing hated the “nice to your face, rude to your back” attitude of some midwesterners. I’ll take NE directness any day if the week. People don’t like CA, that’s fine. But it’s not a toilet any more than red states like AL, MS and AR are.
As for UA’s colossal failure…this was both avoidable and fixable. Once it happened UA should have been going to every Costco and Sam’s Club in the Bay Area to clear the shelves of ice and beverages. They should have been ordering lunch boxes at every Panera with 50 miles of SFO. If you care for your customers you do what you have to do and go the extra mile.
1990 – stop with the politics. We are SICK of your TDS and your introducing politics into each and every post. Go away. We very much dislike you here. You are an angry old man and you should find another mouth piece instead of trolling over travel sites. Pathetic loser.
@Adam — Thank you for the attention. Never seen you on here before, so please allow me to welcome you, sir. As to your request, that’s nope for me, dawg. Politics is life, money, power, culture, and yes, definitely a frequent discussion at VFTW. You’d be disingenuous to suggest that I’m the only commenter; like, c’mon, don’t deny these other fine folks their credit, too. As for this thread, I didn’t ‘start the fire,’ and no one needs to ‘put it out’ either. You and a few others sometimes suggest self-censorship (or actual banning), but that won’t silence me, and no one lately has risen to any level deserving of that. It’s Gary site, and he has been a champion of free speech on here. We should all admire that. You can ignore or engage. You do you.