Airline Food

Posted on 2003/01/03 10:40:21 (January 2003) by john.

The good, the bad, and the inedible.

On the news earlier, there was a feature on airline food. Apparently, more and more airlines are stopping their "complimentary" food service, i.e. food included in the price, in favour of passengers paying for food on the plane. To be honest I'm not too sure where I stand on this, although I rather like the idea of doing away with the trolleys one way or another, and having something (perhaps a bar) you can walk to and spend some time at. I find airline seats horrendously uncomfortable, and would really value some reason (besides going to the toilet) to get up and have a little stroll.

The feature flashed a screenshot of the AirlineMeals.net website, which has the rather unusual slogan "The world's first site dedicated to nothing but airline food". Strangely, I found it quite an interesting read. Basically it's just a load of people sending in photographs and reviews of the food they had. However bland this may sound, I found myself oddly drawn into the subject.

Airline food is a bit bizarre though isn't it? All those strange little boxes. On the way over to Japan, flying with KLM, my breakfast included a pineapple omelette, which I found quite unusual. Additionally the "snack" between the two main meals, was a choice between a chicken pot noodle type thing (which, unlike the English variety, actually contained real chicken) and a tiny little tub of ice cream. This I found a bit frustrating, as I was quite hungry by this point and I didn't really see ice cream as a great deal of inspiration in terms of a vegetarian alternative. Still though, I mustn't grumble, in general the food on KLM is more or less OK, although at times a bit unusual. It gives you the impression they were just drunk when devising the menus, but generally meant well.

I flew with JAL the previous time I came to Japan, and they seemed to be generally quite good. Not exactly the most exciting gourmet experience of my life, but then you wouldn't expect that in economy class. Importantly, I can't remember anything bad about it, so it must have been OK overall.

Lufthansa, who I flew with on my first trip to Japan, I didn't have so much sympathy for. I recall particularly a sandwich, that must have spent several days fully emmersed in water to get to the pinnacle of utter sogginess it had achieved. Additionally, a slightly embarassing incident occurred when I had, unusually, something like sag aloo for breakfast. Being used to having strange things on planes (like the pineapple omelette) I didn't think to say anything. It was only towards the end of eating it that I realised they'd actually given me the halal meal belonging to the muslim lady seated next to me by accident, and she actually had been given my vegetarian meal. Luckily it transpired the halal meal didn't contain any meat, and my vegetarian meal seemed to be halal-compatible by default. The very nice lady next to me didn't want to cause a fuss, which led me to believe she was a fellow English person (although actually she was French). Still, on arrival at our destination I was considering inviting the cabin crew to a brewery, in which they could fail to organise a piss-up. Yes, generally Lufthansa were pretty crap.

Anyone else had any good/bad experiences?

I would like to look back at the days of old when flying was a luxury afforded by many. Instead of being treated like cattle and fed the slops of the food industry, they were waited on hand and foot in spacious airplanes filled with bars and large seating areas. The airline industry knew how to treat its customers back them.

These days, you're just carted on at one end and ferried off the other. You might be lucky to get the cabin crew welcoming you at each end and you might just be able to get a glass of water that it is included in your flight.

So what the alternative? Fly business or first class? Unlike the trains, where first class cost a reasonable amount more, Business and first require you to take out a mortgage on the house.

We treat cattle better than we treat passengers on aircraft.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2003/01/03 10:52:42.

I always remember fondly the day at work when we looked up the price of a flight on Concorde. A return flight to New York cost (at the time) the princely sum of 8762 pounds. However, superbly, if you booked online, you could get a five pound discount.

Posted by John at 2003/01/03 10:55:27.

Anyway Rob yes you're right. The usual "the customer is always right" seems to have been replaced with "the customer should bloody well appreciate that they're on a plane in the first place".

All the extra seriousness introduced by customs and security checks really takes the fun out of air travel I think. I love the idea of visiting other countries, but I don't think I've ever looked forward to the flight itself. On the other hand, when I last went to Scotland, and when you and I went to France that time, the journey was all part of the fun.

Posted by John at 2003/01/03 11:03:34.

Yes, you're quite right, I'm fed up with being treated like a sheep, I mean what's the point of going abroad if you're just another tourist carted round in buses, surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Boventry in their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their 'Sunday Mirrors', complaining about the tea, 'Oh they don't make it properly here do they not like at home' stopping at Majorcan bodegas, selling fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamares and two veg and sitting in their cotton sun frocks squirting Timothy White's suncream all over their puffy raw swollen purulent flesh cos they 'overdid it on the first day'! And being herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellevueses and Bontinentals with their modern international luxury roomettes and draft Red Barrel and swimming pools full of fat German businessmen pretending they're acrobats, forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging in the queues and if you're not at your table spot on seven you miss the bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, the first item on the menu of International Cuisine...

Posted by Eric at 2003/01/03 11:12:43.

The "low cost" airlines are partly to blame for ruining the level of service. Like you say John, they have the mentality of "Well, you're bloody lucky we're doing this great service for you - and so cheaply too. How dare you complain?"

Well, that's utter crap. They should be running a business. Even if it meant paying 50 quid for a flight rather than 40, I'd cough up just to be treated like a human being.

I'll bet your flights weren't that cheap eh John? But the 'proper' airlines now see that they can get away with it too because a large percentage of travellers have only ever flown with low cost - and therefore crappy - airlines and know no different.

EasyJet? Have you tried getting to Luton in the rush hour? Nothing Easy about that Stelios!

Go? Go where? Well, only the places that Eric (rightly) despises due to the presence of the Great Unwashed of Essex.

Ryan Air? About the only one I've heard good things about - but have never flown with.

Airline food is shit. Airline service is pretty shit. Nah. You're better off walking/swimming.

Posted by rowanboy at 2003/01/03 11:59:07.

My flights to Japan are usually somewhere around the 500 quid mark. I'm in two minds about whether that annoys me or not.

On the one hand, it's half a thousand pounds as our friend Byrnie once put it, which is a hell of a lot of money in a sense. As such, economy class or otherwise, I'd sort of expect not to be fed up, bored, uncomfortable and badly fed for 12 hours or so.

On the other hand though, you are being taken half way around the world in less than a day, which is a thoroughly amazing thing when you think about it. I'm only 25 and I've already been to the other side of the world three times. For my grandparents' generation this was just out of the question. (well, in a non-military capacity at any rate). So I wonder if maybe I do just have to accept that flying commerical airliners plain sucks, but it is worth it in the end.

Posted by John at 2003/01/03 24:13:39.

I know commercial airline pilots and the food they get is bloody lovely. So it's not inconceivable that the meals can be half decent. Having travelled to America on the cheapios a few times, I do appreciate the prices but I am with Tom as far as money is concerned. Charge me 20 quid more for a decent meal!

Posted by Rob Lang at 2003/01/03 13:32:28.

My Dad flew First Class when he went over to Thailand last Summer. He ate David Beckham's lobster... it's a long story but that's the crux of it all.

Posted by Rusty at 2003/01/05 16:31:22.

Is that some kind of metaphor?

Posted by John at 2003/01/06 09:10:20.

The mile high club.

Posted by rowanboy at 2003/01/06 11:07:08.

I flew First Class to Iran a couple of years back. They call it Homa class. Mmmm. Homa class.

Posted by rowanboy at 2003/01/06 11:07:46.

I flew first class when I go the gliding school. Only cos I am a first class pilot! Corney warning.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2003/01/06 11:22:21.

When Mat flew out and joined me in Oz last year he flew Singapore Airlines which was great apparently. I've never had any problem with BA either, in fact I was more or less kissing their feet when they got me out of India. I think that KLM and Lutfhansa have joint first place on the Airlines That Suck list though - I don't think I've ever flown with KLM where me, the cameraman and the film kit have all arrived at the same destination!

Posted by Alex at 2003/01/06 24:25:32.

I have flown transatlantic with KLM and they arrived to the minute, no complaints what so ever. They even served ice-cream during the film.

Posted by dsp at 2003/01/07 09:08:49.

My dad reads those ever-so-exciting and there was a story at the back of one which went along the lines of: A man arrives at the check-in desk of an American airline and presents the check-in staff with 3 bags and his ticket. "I'm flying to Los Angleles but I need this bag to go to New York, this one to Boston and the third one to Chicago". The check-in person looks at the man like he has just beamed himself down from another universe and says "I'm afraid that's completely out of the question, sir" to which the man replies "well you bloody well managed it last time".

Also in the summer I booked a flight on the internet to Austria in two bits via Munich - the first flight was BA, the second "by another carrier". I asked for them to send me tickets and when they arrived I checked them over and found that the flight time Munich-Austria was 2 hours. Wondering how it could be so long when London Munich was only 1 hr 45 mins I discovered that "this flight is operated by a bus". This was hidden very discreetly on a separate link on the Opodo site.In addition to this, when I eventually arrived in Munich I discovered that the "Bus" was in fact a people carrier - wondrous no?

Sorry to butt in on your conversation.

Posted by Rachel at 2003/01/08 16:10:01.

No need to apologise for butting in - you're very welcome to!

Posted by John at 2003/01/08 18:09:17.

I was on flight ek 40 from bhx to dubai.I was eating found long hair in my food i asked the crew who cater it she said alha flight services .

Posted by alpha flight services at 2004/12/29 23:57:10.

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