Worst Airline Meal on the Planet?

by Gary Leff

I recently wrote about why food tastes bad on planes, and how to fix it. Even the best attempts at a meal can fall flat at altitude.

However there are plenty of meal attempts that aren’t even trying, or actively trying to be disgusting.

There’s a recent viral story about an Emirates passenger complaining about their cajun chicken sandwich. Doesn’t look great, but not actively ‘grosser than gross’.

Passengers used to say that United’s Charlie Trotter meals gave them The Trots. And those were in premium cabins.

A year and a half ago easyJet was found serving 10 year expired cheese toasties. My guess was the expiration date was just a mistake in labeling.

A year ago I wrote about American Airlines shelf stable soup.

Wait… what?

Their shelf stable milk doesn’t strike me as any more appetizing.

What’s the worst meal you’ve ever had on a plane?

About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. Hey Gary, wheres your article detailing your giddiness over the TSA guys suicide? Screw you

  2. This one is easy. Flying from PHL to Rome on US Airways in 2009 in economy, the meal choices were chicken or pasta. I chose the pasta. And as it turned out, the side dish for BOTH choices was…….wait for it…….cold pasta salad!

    So, yes, my meal was a hot, completely overcooked pasta dish with a side of pasta salad!

  3. I remember as a little kid flying Northwest from JFK to HKG via NRT my parents and my brother all threw up from whatever meal Northwest served them. I didn’t throw up, and felt like I was missing out because I thought that it was normal to throw up from airplane food. Little did I know then, I was the lucky one.

  4. @”Richard” – it’s clearly sad, though I don’t know the circumstances the individual was facing. I harbor no animosity towards individual TSA employees (I was recently quoted in Conde Nast suggesting thanking them for working during the shutdown). I have criticisms over government security policies but that is a different matter. What’s your beef?

  5. Perhaps surprisingly, while I’ve had many mediocre meals on US airlines, the worst meal I ever had was on KE TPE-ICN. The vgml was quite literally nothing but flavorless tofu and rice. I’m quite certain catering forgot whatever sauce was meant to go on it. Fortunately, it’s not that long a flight, and there is plenty of food at ICN.

  6. Several years ago, Alitalia from FCO to CAI. I couldn’t tell if the slices of meat were cold cuts or cold fish (they looked like cold cuts, but tasted like rancid fish). It’s the only meal I’ve had on a plane that was absolutely inedible.

  10. Wasn’t that Cajun Chicken Sandwich served at the Fyre Festival? Except there they had some lettuce with it?

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