American Airlines Quietly Replaces Its Awful $16 Steak Sandwich With a Southwest-Style Turkey Wrap That’s Actually Good

American Airlines has quietly improved its buy on board food for sale offering. No press release or announcement. A turkey wrap replaced the dreaded beef sandwich, and it’s a big improvement.

The $16 steak sandwich new in the spring was pretty gross. I’ve had it soggy, sweating from sitting in its plastic wrap, and I’ve had it when it wasn’t sweaty and it was still pretty bad. I was glad not to see it.

They also had the tapas box on my flight, which they honestly did a nice job with. The contents aren’t what I usually want to eat, but it’s a bountiful setup of different tastes and does the job for a snack if you’ve got nothing else.

A flight attendant came around prior to doing drink and snack service on my DC to Dallas flight this week. They offered me a snack item and offered one to the gentleman across the aisle at the exit row as well, so he was either a ConciergeKey or Executive Platinum since those levels offer a complimentary buy on board food item. He picked the tapas box.

I chose the “sandwich wrap” which I asked about and was told was turkey. A turkey wrap? I did not even know about that, but then I haven’t flown a coach American flight with buy on board over the past month and it appears they swapped out the steak sandwich for a $13 Southwest turkey wrap with street-corn salad and a churro bar about three weeks ago.

I wasn’t hungry. I’d eaten lunch at the Capital One Landing (which was excellent, as always).

Still, I ordered it to take a bite of each item and take some pictures. I wanted it for the context.

In some ways that’s unfair – there might not have been enough for everyone who wanted them on board. I don’t know if that’s the case and that’s on American Airlines for its provisioning. I did feel a little bad not eating much of it, though, but I’d order it again if I were hungry.

It was good enough to eat. The vegetable side was a bit too ‘wet’ and mayo-drenched for my tastes but it wasn’t bad. The dessert bar was tasty. And while the wrap itself was too moist from sitting in plastic, it actually held up a lot better than the sandwich did. I wouldn’t say it was delicious by any means, but you could eat it – it wasn’t gross. That’s a big step up from American’s last sandwich attempt as they gradually bring back food for sale offerings in coach.