American Airlines Still Calls This 40-Cent Bundt Cake First Class Dessert — Here’s How To Actually ‘Pivot To Premium’

For nearly four years American Airlines has been serving ‘woke’ bundt cake as domestic first class dessert. Their promotional materials never even claimed that it was good, just that it was transformational for an intersectional ‘young single mom’.

Central commissary, mass-produced, frozen, portion-controlled. You’re probably talking $0.40 a piece at scale. It hits the spreadsheet sweet spot.

They’re not trying to win incremental revenue off domestic first catering. Is it literally the cheapest dessert imaginable? Probably not — you could do a bag of M&Ms! But that would read as a snack, not dessert with a plated meal. And the bundt cake has to be the cheapest thing that still looks like a plated dessert.

The bundt cake dessert in domestic first class was the perfect choice for the airline’s ‘never spend a dollar we don’t have to’ era (just like the $1 shelf-stable pasta entree).

However, if American Airlines is going to pivot to premium to try to generate more revenue against its high costs, they’re going to need to invest in something better.

This choice came out of the era where American Airlines inflight was trying to reinvent catering as something cheaper (‘more modern’ but that ‘still has a premium feel’). That is literally the era they are now trying to jettison. So they need to move on from the bundt cake.

American Airlines is partnering with a New York bakery on lounge desserts. So let’s partner with a New York bakery for inflight desserts!

• There’s nothing more on-brand for an airline than Biscoff
  
• But they could one-up competitors at the same time.

Here’s your new dessert, American Airlines. You’re welcome:

Partner Qatar Airways used to serve Laduree desserts. American doesn’t need to invest in branding like that, though they’re now offering Bollinger champagne. Something like this, though, would go a long way towards making American Airlines great again.