• What's elliott?
• About elliott
• Contact us

t o p i c s

• Business
• Commentary
• Destinations
• Help
• Leisure
• Technology
• Vault

Copyright Elliott Publishing. All rights reserved. For more information, call (305) 453-4781 or send e-mail to us.

Plane Food Worth Paying For
Power Trip · September 29, 2003

Should you bring your own meal on your next airline trip — or buy it on the plane?

Free food on shorter flights is gone. The major carriers eliminated their air fare in a recent cost-cutting effort, and not a moment too soon. Few people liked the in-flight meals to begin with.

But travelers don't want to go hungry either, at least according to a survey by caterer LSG Sky Chefs. Nearly three out of four passengers want the option of buying meals during the flight if the airline isn't offering a freebie. "People ranked food as being very important," says Annette Rogers, a spokeswoman for LSG Sky Chefs, "even on shorter flights."

All of which now leaves you with two options for your next airline trip — three, really, if you also want to count the Mile-High diet. Bring your own food. Buy it on-board. Or starve.

I've always favored bringing my own food, because I can control what I eat. In the days before the airlines cut their meal service, I would pack my own lunch because I didn't want to get stuck with their rubber chicken du jour with a side of soggy greens. Starving is just not my thing, either. For some reason, plane trips leave me with a voracious appetite.

But is the "new" in-flight fare any good? Is it better than what they replaced it with?

The short answer: yes. Here's what you'll find out there:

A café with wings. US Airways was among the first of the major airlines to commit itself to the pay-for-food concept, and it's done an impressive job by most accounts. It began offering what it called its "In-flight Café" service on most domestic flights of 700 miles or more in the summer of 2003. A typical breakfast is a blueberry-walnut muffin, a fresh honeydew and mandarin orange salad, yogurt with low-fat granola on the side and a bottle of spring water, for $7. Simone Bennett, who works for a Pittsburgh software developer, shelled out $10 for a grilled chicken sandwich, and reports that it was "very good." She says she felt she got a lot of meal for the money, "and I definitely liked it 100 times better than the normal coach fare for a meal." (I'm snacking on a coffee cake sold on US Airways flights as I write this column, and I second that.)

Song: No singing, but the food draws applause. Delta's new no-frills division, Song, offers items such as a California veggie soft taco, described as "assorted farm-direct and organic vegetables including sweet peppers, brown rice and heirloom beans wrapped in a soft corn taco shell and served with salsa." The waiters — make that flight attendants — don't sing, but the food sure does get raves. Maybe that's because it was created by a real chef instead of synthesized in a kitchen (that would be Michel Nischan, the former executive chef at the W New York Hotel). Rhoda Kane, who was on a recent flight from Boston to Tampa, Fla., liked the generous portions and said the dishes tasted reasonably good, considering that it was airline food. However, the Wesley Chapel, Fla., retiree almost choked on the prices: $7 for a sandwich and $5 for soup.

Everyone loves Italian food. At least that's the thinking at Northwest Airlines, which also recently introduced a buy-your-own-food program in its economy class cabin. It's teamed up with D'Amico & Sons, a Minneapolis-based Italian restaurant, to offer gourmet salads, sandwiches, pizzas and pastas. A recent menu featured balsamic chicken and strawberry salad with flat bread, a cookie and a bottle of water for $10. But is it worth it? Well, if it didn't pass muster, I would have probably heard of it by now. And if it's half as good as the food at the ground-based D'Amico & Sons, then I'd say there's nothing plain about this plane fare.

Bring your own — with a twist. The other big airlines are planning to follow the vapor trails of US Airways, Song and Northwest, but until then, you can always order food before you go. That's the idea behind SkyMeals, which offers travelers leaving from Los Angeles-area airports ready-made gourmet meals. And when I say "gourmet," I mean that in the truest sense of the word. Here's a selection from the dinner menu: center-cut seared tuna, wasabi aioli, sesame ginger dressing, jicama, orange and cilantro salad, cucumber, zucchini and avocado. Mmmmm. The price also is on the extravagant side — almost $30 — but it includes delivery. Tove Sharp, a Los Angeles media consultant, prefers the salads — she's tried the Asian Soba Salad a few times on short-haul flights — because it's "easy, tastes good, and it's good for me." It's also better than eating nothing.

Am I suggesting the airline industry has done right by selling us food? No. Actually, the airlines basically gave up on feeding passengers and are allowing their caterers to sell the food on flights. So the carriers, as far as I can tell, still have no real interest in serving us palatable food.

But here's something the airlines could do to make our decisions to buy meals a little easier. How about creating an on-board "account" — a tab where we could add food, beverages or in-flight entertainment selections — so that we didn't have to break out cash every time we wanted something to eat? The account would be settled electronically at the end of the trip.

These systems are actually being used on Song and tested on United Airlines, according to Sherry Cox, a spokeswoman for caterer Gate Gourmet. "The technology has the capability of processing credit-card transactions, the use of frequent-flier points and transactions with coupons," Cox says.

I like the new on-board dining options. Almost enough to forget about bringing my own food and wing it with what the airlines are offering.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.

Get a look behind the scenes at Power Trip. Check out Elliott's Travel Notes blog.