Tag Archives for inflight meals.
As a Dallas-based airline, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that American Airlines doesn’t know what a bagel is. There’s really strong Asian food in Houston (especially Vietnamese) but not as much in the Dallas Metroplex. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the folks working on American’s food and beverage team aren’t familiar with Asian cuisine, either.
Especially on sub-1500 mile routes, American Airlines meals can be disappointing. The watchword here is inconsistency. I expect that out of my home town of Austin where catering hasn’t been able to keep up with American Airlines growth, and meal provisioning has frequently had to be trucked in from Houston.
Still I was especially non-plussed by the options presented to me for my recent Austin – Charlotte – Austin flights in first class. The turkey sandwich even reared its ugly head. For dinner!
American shares that they have a new pre-order option coming and it’s actually part of the existing James Beard Foundation partnership that launched shortly before the pandemic.
The pre-order program re-launches October 12 “as part of wellbeing menu launch.” Some flights will see these meals as part of the regular choices in the cabin, but it will also be pre-order “on select flights.”
The meals are “presented on tableware from Singapore luxury brand Luzerne, elegantly plated and accompanied by appetizers, breads and desserts” – even for those traveling in economy!
The summer before the global pandemic, Delta Air Lines revamped its long haul economy product. In a sign that they had forgotten they were an airline they introduced amenity kits, welcome drinks and hot towels, and course-based dining in economy class.
To show just how different of an airline Delta is now, compare course-based dining in economy with this.
There are customers that are pure price buyers. That’s the market Spirit Airlines and Frontier cater to. There are also coach passengers who will pay more for a better experience. And premium cabin customers are going to be paying substantially more to get a better product.
High cost airlines like American, United and Delta need to appeal to customers that will spend more money. They need to earn a revenue premium since they aren’t going to be the low-cost producers of seats.
Nature is healing. Food matters. Customers may not have time to eat before a flight, or buy food on connections. The point of first class isn’t just “the Big Front Seat” unless you’re flying Spirit Airlines. It’s buying a less stressful and more effortless experience. Earning a revenue premium for the product means delivering things that make travel better for passengers, and time and again customers have stated that inflight meals matter.
At an employee question and answer session with executives after the American Airlines earnings call on Thursday, one crewmember asked, “Now that we’re serving alcohol and making food available for purchase in the main cabin, will alcohol be free to customers in Main Cabin Extra again? And also do we plan to expand our food for purchase options?”
In fact, alcohol is already free of charge in coach for passengers seated in Main Cabin Extra as well as Executive Platinum and Concierge Key members. And there are going to be new food options for sale in coach, but this program won’t start until after summer.
Before the pandemic one of the American Airlines breakfasts on regional jets was a smoked salmon plate. American’s regional jets don’t have ovens in the galleys so it was a perfect meal to serve cold. I always thought that it was a better choice than an egg dish with sausage on mainline.
In the fall I had a smoked salmon plate on my Los Angeles – Honolulu flight. I was thrilled at the choice, but there was no tomato and I was given a miniature bagel. I’ve often criticized American Airlines for failing to pay attention to the details. On this flight they’d really figured it out.
Pre-order meals return for domestic first class (special meals come back next month). Second beverage service on longer coach flights comes back – American had dropped this as a sop to its flight attendants union back in January. Transcon flights get new meal improvements especially.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
