An American Airlines first class passenger was the only one not to get a meal on their flight, and she’s taken to social media saying it’s because she’s Black.
The influencer believes that she was singled out for her race. This does not make sense to me. She did not pre-order her meal (which any passenger can do until 24 hours prior to their flight) and she was seated in the last row. That put her last on the list to make a meal selection.
- She wasn’t in the last row because of her race.
- There was a catering issue. If they ran out of meals as she says, then the flight was under-provisioned. That’s was done by the caterer, not knowing who’d be shorted a meal – so also not a race issue.
- Where she’s sitting, rather than what she looked like, is clearly why she wound up without a meal.
American Airlines is under fire after the only Black first-class passenger, an influencer, claimed that they conveniently ran out of all their food when it was her turn to be served, and everybody else was served. ️ ✈️
— Rain Drops Media (@Raindropsmedia1) May 15, 2025
The passenger complains that she wasn’t offered anything in lieu of the meal (like ‘chips’). That’s fair – but flights under 1,300 miles don’t have food for sale in economy on American Airlines. I imagine that the flight attendant could have been more empathetic and apologetic, but there wouldn’t have been coach meals or snacks to offer.
1,300-mile flights and longer may have cheese plates for sale in back, with usually only around 4 loaded
Here question of ‘how could this happen’ that American runs out of meals, when they know how many first class seats there are, is a reasonable one! It doesn’t usually happen, but catering is done quickly, and sometimes carelessly. And it happens enough that flight attendants have gotten a memo reminding them to apologize (but not to delay the flight to fix it). A year ago Chicago and Philadelphia flights were frequently having catering issues.
I had one reader ask about the person next to her clearly eating. Assuming that the flight was literally short a meal (rather than being short what the woman making the video wanted) then it’s possible her seatmate had pre-ordered, or just ordered before her when the flight attendant came to their row for meal selection.
There may not have been enough meals (miscatered flight). It’s possible that the flight attendant working the front cabin of this 737 dropped a meal in the galley. There are any number of things that could have happened that are more plausible and more benign than ‘what she looked like’ as the reason for not getting a meal.
My American Airlines first class meal on Thursday
I don’t think I’m known for giving American Airlines a pass on issues. I’d just want more facts in evidence here before suggesting race was a factor, when the balance of probabilities likely leans in a different direction.
If the woman was seated in the first or second row and was the only one refused a meal, then we might have something to at least delve further into.
Darling, your money is on the dresser.
She’s fat enough she can afford to skip a meal or two.
Learned my lesson witht that. I always pre order, so I don’t have to deal with not getting what I want to eat.
Yeah I’m quite sure it’s not a race thing. It’s still worth her putting up a big fuss though — it’s first class! Running out of food is pretty ridiculous.
Yep, always pre order and wear clothes on my flights.
I believe this was the same person who harassed a Delta flight awhile back. Another in a long line of serial race-baiters
No excuse for a first class pax not getting a meal. There should always be at least one more than what is expected. But…the bean counters.
Every POC in structurally racist white privileged America read the headline of this post and immediately thought “yeah something like this definitely could have happened, and white people are confused and/or completely oblivious to the idea that something like this could happen.”
AA’s incompetence and customer unfriendliness are secondary here.
Black, Brown, Asian and other marginalized communities in American life routinely face instances of discrimination that white people play off as (0) “one overlooked fact explains everything”, (1) that is not possible, (2) that didn’t happen, (3) there is an innocent explanation, or all kinds of aggravating excuses. The woman in this incident was discriminated against, plain and simple.
Dollars to donuts had this been a White man in the seat, AA flight attendants–who are generally nowhere near as bad as frontline AA staff on the ground–would have apologized profusely and said a catering mixup meant there isn’t any meal, but would you like more mixed nuts? Another drink? Anything else I can do to make your flight more comfortable? Please accept our sincere apologies and 10,000 AA points are on your way into your account.
Black women, like other POCs, get the silent treatment and that’s discrimination and I will not hear it any other way.
@Miguel95 My thoughts exactly. No AA doesn’t deny black people meals in first. She’s just an uneducated moron looking for clicks and maybe a few bucks. Black fatigue again.
I guess the white flight attendant on my MIA/PIT flight didn’t do pre departure beverages because we were all white.
I had the exact same thing happen behind me on a flight DXB DFW on EK. We were in the 2nd to last row of the 2 seats on the 777LR. We were literally the only white people on the plane.
I heard the FA say “we are out of chicken” a few rows up. When they got to the black couple in the very last row, they started with the whole “you ran out on purpose because I’m black” bit. They even tried to get me to sympathize with them.
They called the EK flight attendants “racists” lol.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
She was on flight 1074, per her screenshot. American serves food and drinks FEBO: from the front on even-numbered flights and from the back on odd-numbered ones. Frequent fliers know this, and know it is risky to be at the opposite end from the starting point. They *always* run out of things. Preordering is important. Also – to “Un”: The flight attendant has no more power to magically woosh 10,000 miles into your account than your seat mate does.
Actually what probably happened is the crew meals were not loaded and the pilots threw a fit and they had to feed pilots.
On a recent flight I gave up my meal as I over heard pilots telling FA they will have to figure out who they wanted to piss off.
AA keeps making catering mistakes but pilots also don’t care about passengers
Ridiculous running out of meals in first class. Probably someone got upgraded and got her meal. Maybe she will have to preorder meals in the future. American Airlines owes her some points.
One of the best reasons for sitting in the middle of the cabin in coach on an Asian airline is that there is usually a choice of meals no matter if service is started from the front or from the back.
I’m white as a ghost and they didn’t have my requested meal ordered in advance
They said have some cheese for dinner 🙁
Can I sue? Got seconds on nuts and sucked it up (sigh)
Put that in the reparations bill. Chances are her server was likely a person of color. Big time black fatigue. Now go call Crump and Sharpton.
I genuinely normally enjoy your views. This will be my last read for obvious reasons. Stick to flight tips. I don’t speak on issues impacting men that I NEVER will experience. Others should learn to do the same. Tip..a simply treating this as a “How to Ensure you get your in-flight meal” would’ve been better.
@jill service manual changed this year… it is always front to back now for preferences. It’s this was clt or phl, they are commisary stations. That means the catering is handled by union AA rampers as opposed to contractors like LSG, gate gourmet etc. They have no consequences for messing anything up. This holdover was negotiated during the us airways merger. For example, they don’t have to print basic paperwork showing what is in the cart… that is considered extra work not outlined in their contract.
This is my favorite post ever!
Miguel95 says:
May 16, 2025 at 1:01 pm
Darling, your money is on the dresser.
They almost certainly gave the pilots their crew meals at the expense of actual passengers, AA continues to be a dumpster fire.
As soon as I saw the word influencer I knew this was fake, no matter the race or the airline
Useless parasites
I am white, but grayed haired old lady and was in the last row and pre ordered my meal on the fc flight I paid for (not an upgrade) and I too did not get my meal. The gave it to someone in front that had not ordered a meal. Oh well, such is life. I guess I forgot I was suppossed to throw a fit and post on social media. Truly, I wasn’t at risk of death for not getting a meal that I pre ordered.
Fighting over not receiving an airplane meal on a short domestic flight is more symbolic than functional. Even in First Class, the meals on short flight segments generally are not life-and-death issues. Running out of wine however…That would be something to protest!
Now @Gary I know you’ve flown American long enough to know that sometimes they take meal orders back to front in first class. I don’t think race was any consideration but shame on the caterer and/or American for not realizing they were short a meal.
And this is why “discrimination” persists–it’s one of these things that you will find if you look hard enough, regardless of whether it really exists. And the people on the receiving end of the false accusations tend to harbor resentments over it.
There’s absolutely no excuse of any kind for running out of meals in the First Class cabin, FFS they should always have a few extras, seems to me like the real problem is that AA ran out a more valuable commodity….COMMON SENSE.
@Un
Nobody cares anymore.
You people bring it on yourselves and stop trying to bring other races into it. You (the blacks) are the only ones who always seem to have the problems.
The fatigue is real.
Put away your race card girl!
If an AA FA had offered an apology, some free snacks or possibly a meal voucher upon arrival, and some FF miles, then all of us could have avoided reading this article. This should just be corporate policy no matter what the last customer seated in the cabin looks like.
Lots of excuses but no valid reason. The money AA saved on short catering this flight short [she made the reservation several days in advance so was not a last minute addition] is wiped out by the bad PR on this experience. There was no service recovery on the flight but perhaps only in retrospect. The FAs must have or should have noticed the short catering and handled it by the means other than getting to h er row and not serving her in any relevant way.
That’s the passenger is an “infuencer” is irrelevant: She didn’t receive the service for which she had paid and has every right to go public.
@ Gary — AA meals are generally disgusting and very unhealthy. Skipping them may be the best option.
Engagement-bait, all-around, original post, Gary’s, etc.
@Coffee Please — Reparations?! So, we thinkin’ 10K miles, 40 acres, AND a mule? Seems fair… *wink*
“The FAs must have or should have noticed the short catering and handled it by the means other than getting to her row and not serving her in any relevant way.” — Remember, this is AA. Is anybody actually surprised?