Airlines used to regularly hand out meal vouchers during flight delays. When it was their fault, they’d cover food costs for passengers and that was expensive.
About 8 years ago, after being taken over by US Airways, American Airlines came up with a solution to save money. They’d roll out carts of snacks to gates on long delays instead of giving customers meal vouchers. This may have even been a win for passengers since they were more liberal with making these ‘Refresh and Refuel’ carts available.
‘Refresh and refuel’ carts by delayed flights replaced food vouchers for passengers
American Airlines has a new “Mix & Munch” snack box to give to customers during delays. Here’s what it contains:
- Wheat Thins crackers
- Oreo cookies
- Cheddar cheese spread
- Gummy bears
- Sea salt almonds
- Sanitizer wipe
There’s a simple reason that American is promoting these new boxes: each one costs the airline $1.47 and has a shelf life of 90 days. I asked American how often we’d see these Mix and Munch boxes and more about the circumstances under which they’d be used (beyond the three hour delay criteria where it’s deemed to be American’s fault), but did not receive a reply.
Wonder if a boarding pass is required to get one of these or if they will hand them out to anybody who happens to be in the gate area
Garbage, just like everything American.
What a bunch of high calorie, low nutrition crap
They used to hang out sky delis. Bring back the SkyDeli
Wow that’s awesome. But expensive for AA. I remember how excited I was to get my 2 snacks during a 2AM UA delay last month! Free is free. In all my years of flying, I think I’ve only had “free snacks” twice in airports.
No sliders!!??
To the barricades!
Trying to figure out what kind of alcoholic beverage to order.
The cardboard box sounds like the most appetizing item here. This comes under the category, “Keep your expectations low and you will never be disappointed.”
No Pringles!!??
@SMR: “They used to hand out sky delis. Bring back the sky deli.”
I agree. Please bring back the sky deli for our sky bellies.
@Sexy_Kitten7
This is not expensive at all – its actually a cost savings over handing out meal vouchers. The mix & munch is also not new. These were trialed in first class back in 2020 as reported by this same website…
https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-testing-a-new-first-class-snack-box/
I’d trade it all for some Bischoff cookies.
These snack boxes are the equivalent of animal crackers and a happy meal toy for kids… just give (delayed/irate) passengers something/anything cheap to eat in order to occupy their attention and pacify them for 10-15 minutes to keep them from rioting. Both kids and adults get cranky when they are tired and hungry. So this is cynically genius.
No Pringles?
Manna from the heavens!
As if lines aren’t long enough already at any terminal eatery. Vouchers are a pain to use.
Nice jester but would not do anything for me. Meal vouchers would be a better fit.