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.
FASCINATING
just experianced the turkey wrap.. on the flight from CLT_DEN yesterday yummy.. but it was only about 3″ long for $13.00..expensive….. should have been only $5.00.. since 3/4 of the wrap wasn’t there. but much better food with it. also the creamy type of corn that came with it was yummy also.
If you’d like a chef-curated, premium meal in the sky, please consider Delta.
@Matt — You sly dog. Keep Climbing! 100 more years!
@Joe D — Two ‘yummy’s… that settles it. SOLD!
@Matt @1990 — Gott’em!
What a nice culinary journey. Hope the ice cream machine was working at the Landing!
Finally! That steak sandwich was honestly one of the worst meals I’ve had on a flight. The turkey wrap sounds like a step in the right direction — not perfect, but at least edible.
@Gary Leff — You’d better ‘step on the gas,’ mah man. OMAAT and LALF already posted about the ‘man with the 19-year-old dog.’ C’mon, it’s an outrage gold-mine just waiting for you! Go! GO! GO!!
I fly weekly throughout the sunbelt and have yet to hear about any food purchase options, nor am I offered anything as an EP…. What gives?
@Joe — At least on United, as a 1K, in Economy, they’d let us have a snackbox and some alckie-hal for free, you know, after our PlusPoints would fail to secure any upgrades… woo…
@Matt — Good luck finding any of that chef curated food on Delta in main cabin. Flights have to be over 1500 miles to get fresh food for sale on them. Think about that. You’d basically have to go across country or Atlanta to Seattle just to buy a turkey wrap.
Give it time, Gary. American’s onboard food almost always starts off halfway respectable. Then the airline’s ingrained, penny-pinching DNA takes over and some cost-cutting hero “optimizes” it into oblivion. Within 18 months, this wrap will go from passable to pathetic, and finally to something that should come with a biohazard warning. Any takers on that bet?
Apparently, chicken wraps are far more important to some travelers than safety or operating reliably.
You have never flown on a 2 day flight from San Francisco to Bangkok Thailand, After 48 hours, you would probably eat anything, and be glad to say, Thank you!…
@DesertGhost — Food quality is safety, bro. Eat a bad wrap, could be a biohazard. Explosive decompression of your digestive system… if ya know… what… I… mean… dawg…
2 day flight from San Francisco to Bangkok, Thailand? That would be really working to have long layovers. I used to fly from LAX to BKK on NWA and it was always less than a day with Narita as the transit airport. I suppose you could get to a day and a half by flying on Singapore Airlines with transits in Japan and Singapore as well as a long layover in Singapore. When I flew between LAX and PNH (not too far from Bangkok) on Singapore Airlines, there was a transit in Japan and a more than 12 hours transit in Singapore. I wouldn’t have flown that route but the ticket was relatively cheap just after a lot of the Covid-19 restrictions had been lifted and Singapore Airlines was competing for the customers who were willing to fly.
Honestly, I’m so relieved they finally got rid of that steak sandwich — it was always dry and overpriced. I tried the new turkey wrap recently and it’s actually pretty decent! The flavors work well and it doesn’t fall apart like the old one. It’s not amazing yet, but definitely a step in the right direction. Hopefully AA keeps improving their food instead of settling here. Thanks for sharing this update!