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Air Canada Makes It All Better With Cookies and Ice Cream

April 29, 2009 at 3:05 PM | 0 Comments

We can be bought with ice cream. We can be bought with a chocolate chip cookie. Give us both and we are totally yours forever and ever amen.

Air Canada clearly knows this, and have obviously arranged for us to stumble across the photograph of the Executive First Class snack on a London to Toronto flight to mitigate the fact that we heard their service was below par. We're seriously thinking that the service could be done by monkeys as long as they were bringing us our Haagen Dazs and freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie. Apparently they also offer oatmeal raisin cookies if you want a semblance of healthy goodness.

We can't confirm if this is the regular snack available on this flight – this picture was taken in January – but we are seriously considering booking a flight so we can find out in person. Or perhaps we just need a trip to the freezer section of the supermarket.

Related Stories:
· Air Canada's First Class Has Great Technology, But ... [Jaunted]
· First Class Travel Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Archangeli]

The Cheese Toastie on BMI Will Not Satisfy You

April 15, 2009 at 5:56 PM | 2 Comments

We know not to expect the best from airline food but this cheese toastie from BMI Airlines is a little too much to take. According to Flickr member kh1234567890:

This delicacy - a cheese 'toastie' was served on the BMI transatlantic ORD-MAN flight. Accompanied by a couple of pieces of mouldy pineapple and some two days old coffee. Yummy.

Why can't airlines just serve cereal or granola? Provided the milk isn't mouldy, it can't be too hard to screw up can it?

Related Stories
· How do you survive long flights? [Jaunted]
· Virgin Atlantic and Others Serving Moldy Food [Jaunted]

Let Them Eat Cookies: The Snack in First on American

April 3, 2009 at 2:26 PM | 0 Comments

Is this really a first class chocolate chip cookie? We're well-qualified cookie connoisseurs and although we're told that this choc chip one is served warm, we're still a little reluctant to give it a first class badge, even though this is what they serve in the first class cabin of American Airlines flights--or at least they did on a recent flight between Chicago and Denver.

The rest of this first class meal looks like a reasonable snack--it's a turkey croissant sandwich with salad, if you're squinting to check--but still, it doesn't quite have the pizazz we're expecting for first class. Non-matching plates, no garnish on the cookie and a slightly sad looking salad don't really make up for the price jump to get this seat. Indeedy, if you just remove the plastic wrapping from the sandwiches in coach and slap 'em on a plate in first, it doesn't look that much differnt.

Of course, we're probably just jealous that people can afford to fly first from Chicago to Denver.

Enlighten us coach sufferers with your first class travel snacks here.

Related Stories:
· Airline Food Coverage [Jaunted]
· American Airlines Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Scorpions and Centaurs]

Pack Food For Your Flight To Keep the Crankies At Bay

April 3, 2009 at 10:52 AM | 3 Comments

Hunger may be the best sauce, but outrage will do: Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd was forced to apologize after taking a flight attendant to task about not getting him the meal he wanted.

Rudd took a 23-year-old flight attendant to task when he was aboard a flight in January on a Royal Australian Air Force plane between Port Moresby and Canberra. Apparently there were no meals available for Rudd's special diet, for which he eschews red meat. (Uh, eat around it, dude?) Rudd told reporters as he arrived in London, "All of us are human I’m human. I’m not perfect, you know."

We still haven't completely nailed down our own personal food-on-the-plane strategy, though of course it depends on the flight. (In one of our Google searches on the subject, the top result was for canned cat food. Don't think so.) Marie Claire travel blogger Sarah Wexler recommends packing pita pockets (hold the mayo), Cup Noodles and individually wrapped candy to keep the angries at bay. Others swear by trail mix, power bars, or their own homemade PB and J. What do you pack to avoid hunger pains in-flight? Tell us in comments below.

Related Stories:
· Kevin Rudd loses temper over in-flight meal [News.com.au]
· Southwest Spreading Rumor About Future Meal Service [Jaunted]
· Airline Food coverage [Jaunted]

Southwest Spreading Rumors About Future Meal Service

March 16, 2009 at 1:28 PM | 4 Comments

Only months after Southwest Airlines announced their turn to cashless cabins, Southwest spokesman Brad Hawkins has hinted at going beyond selling soda and Monster energy drinks in favor of peddling full in-flight meal service. Although this would be a wonky move for a carrier so wrapped up in its own no-frillsness, it would definitely improve customer satisfaction and make Southwest a favorite among diabetics and others who'd prefer to have more than a packet of peanuts on a 4-hour flight.

Don't take your plastic out after takeoff just yet, however, as the idea to vend food in-flight is still in the brainstorming stages over at SWA. Since we like having options aside from which end of the aircraft to use the bathroom, we're into this idea, but suggest they take it a step further and leverage their Twitter account for public response. Perhaps a monthly special as voted on by @southwest's followers? Because let's face it, that's just about the only way we'll be able to get some decent roast beef at 33,000' above Oklahoma.

Related Stories:
· Southwest Airlines Considers Selling Food On Flights [Aero-News]
· Southwest Joins Ranks of Airlines With 'Plastic Only' Policy [Jaunted]
· Airline News coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: ChicagoEye]

Qatar Airways Serves Up Eco-Trays and Pot Pie

February 18, 2009 at 4:01 PM | 0 Comments

There is at least one airline listening to passenger's calls for better meal service and an attention to eco-responsibility. Qatar Airways has just announced a complete revampment of their in-flight food service for flights to and from England, and surprisingly the focus is on quality in economy class.

Instead of sad, beige plastic trays with the airline logo, Qatar Airways will be rolling out clear, 99% recyclable lightweight trays and serving sets which will be set onto a placemat in a color of your choosing.

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Virgin America Not Bringing Enough Snacks to Share

October 17, 2008 at 2:30 PM | 2 Comments

Yesterday, Virgin America announced that it would start serving mixed-in-the-cabin cocktails, a move another airline has tried before. But that obscured the real news of the day: First class passengers will get free, freshly baked, warm cookies on red eye flights.

There's only one other airline handing out cookies these days, and it's the one that invented the idea: Midwest. And while we applaud any effort to please passengers that involves sugary goodness, at least Midwest hands out treats to everyone.

By flouting the age-old rule about cookie sharing like this, Virgin clearly isn't counting on any first grade teachers being on board.

Related Stories:
· Virgin America Now Selling Headsets [Jaunted]
· Are Midwest's Cookies Endangered? [Jaunted]

[Photo of Midwest's cookies: azalea]

Asian LCCs: Kingfisher Will Actually Feed Passengers

October 15, 2008 at 11:45 AM | 0 Comments

It may be in financial trouble, but Kingfisher Airlines is planning to offer an unprecedented LCC service: A hot meal. Finally, an airline providing the same level of service to passengers as prisons give inmates.

A general manager told The Times of India that the meals, to be served on spin-off Kingfisher Red, will be tasty, too:

We are Indians, we don't survive on cold sandwiches and biscuits for lunch.

Seeing that most low cost carriers ask us to subsist on nothing, it sounds like a fairly generous offer. They must be using the money from all their layoffs to pay for it.

Related Stories:
· Kingfisher Offering Hot Meals [Business Spectator]
· Kingfisher Air Promises Hottest Flight Attendants in the Sky [Jaunted]

[Photo: Tony Leah]

Ewwww Travel: Sky Chefs Meals May Have Been Unsafe

September 23, 2008 at 4:30 PM | 2 Comments

The FDA has posted to its website a letter to LSG Sky Chefs, a caterer that makes more than 400 million airline meals a year. The FDA says that it found some food safety violations during a May inspection of one of Sky Chefs' seafood processing facilities. Specifically:

Your Tilapia fillets and shrimp meals are adulterated, in that they have been prepared, packed or held under insanitary conditions whereby they may have been rendered injurious to health.

The Sky Chefs say they took steps to correct the problems back in May, which at any rate involved retail--not airline--food. (That makes it OK to skimp on safety measures?)

Though it sounds like diners weren't really at risk this time, it does make us think twice about ordering the fish. Surely Leslie Nielsen can't save every food poisoned passenger!

Related Stories:
· Airline Caterer in Violation of Food-Safety Rules [WSJ]
· Adventures of Link: Airplane! [Jaunted]
· Airline Food coverage [Jaunted]

United Decides Not to Charge for Airplane Food

September 3, 2008 at 8:45 AM | 0 Comments

Turns out United doesn't have the heart to charge passengers for food on transatlantic flights. The carrier, which was planning to start asking for $9 a sandwich next month on a limited number of flights, recanted on its plan in an "open letter" sent to customers:

Thank you for your direct, candid feedback on the test we had planned to launch in the fourth quarter for food choices on some of our flights. We heard you and have decided not to move forward with the test of offering customers buy-on-board options in United Economy on certain trans-Atlantic flights. We will continue to offer complimentary hot meals on those flights.

So score one for the pro-consumer crowd--and the aviation blogs that made a racket when United first announced the new charges. Now we can look forward to more free pasta like this!

Related Stories:
· United Airlines Loses Food Fight [Elliott]
· United to Start Charging for Food on Some International Flights [Jaunted]

[Photo: OndraSoukup]

United to Start Charging for Food on Some International Flights

August 20, 2008 at 11:20 AM | 1 Comment

United will start charging for meals on flights leaving Dulles International for Europe starting October 1. If there is any good news in that announcement, it's that a $39 meal doesn't seem to be on the menu.

United is also doing away with its free snacks on domestic flights, which we're not really too sad about. (Do people actually like those airline pretzels?) Instead, "Buy on Board" offerings will be expanded, and prices will go up from $5 and $7 to $6 and $9, depending on the particular snack pack.

The carrier will still provide free meals on flights to Asia. But might we suggest a website update? As of now, United still lists complimentary meal service as an international amenity.

Related Stories:
· United Will Charge for International Meals [Columbus Dispatch]
· United Eliminates Free Meals on Transatlantic Flights [UTB]
· United May Start Charging for Food on International Flights [Jaunted]

United May Start Charging for Food on International Flights

August 4, 2008 at 12:30 PM | 0 Comments

United may soon start charging for food on its international flights, and the carrier is running a survey to test the marketplace. A 38-question poll is making the rounds among FlyerTalk types, with questions about how much you'd pay for different types of snack and meal offerings. (If you're really that bored at work, you can take it here.)

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