Airline Food: A love/hate relationship(2)
Now that¡¯s something you never could tell your mum when you were a kid.
At Virgin Atlantic, all meals are complimentary in Economy Class. In Premium Class you¡¯ll get a pre-flight drink and then be able to choose your meal from three different options. Your feast is served on china with stainless steel cutlery. In Upper Class you can order what you want, when you want. But you may be too busy to eat when you are having fun at the private bar built for you and your fellow Uppers.
Dessert in the air is a special treat. This is usually reserved for Upper Class. For example, at Virgin you can select ¡°butterscotch pudding with vanilla bourbon mascarpone.¡±
Americans might turn their heads a bit if they hear a British native asking for ¡°fairy cake.¡± Fairy cake is simply cupcakes. Cupcakes are rarely served on airline flights--although Air Tran Airways did commemorate the 50th Birthday of ¡°Little Debbie¡± snack cupcakes by designing a special logo for each of their Boeing 717¡¯s. For more information on cupcakes in Essex, UK, click here.
The Chef is Where?
So who is cooking all this food? LSG Sky Chefs is the largest provider of airline catering in the world. They capture anywhere from 30-40% market share depending on the country. Their corporate name is LSG Lufthansa Service Holding AG and the world headquarters is near Frankfurt Germany.
LSG Sky Chefs employees packing airline aisle carts.
LSG Sky Chefs is in 50 countries serving more than 200 airports. Their 28,499 employees serve over 460,000,000 meals a year on over 300 airlines. In 2010 they had revenues of over € 2.2 billion.
One LSG Sky Chefs operation can churn out 46,000 meals a day. It's not that easy to find food that serves well at 38,000 feet in the air. For example, souffl¨¦s do not rise at that altitude and so are never served. Another time in the 1990¡¯s, McDonald's did a Happy Meals promotion with an airline. The cheese had to be reformulated because it tended to liquefy in-flight. Even coffee is difficult because it is hard to bring water to the correct temperature.
All of the food is cooked on grills that measure more than 5 feet in length. They cook potatoes on one hand and vegetables on the other. Recipes for each meal vary according to the airline route they will be placed on. International flights to exotic destinations get more spicy dishes while domestic flights usually feature moderate seasoning.
Meat is cooked on completely different grills. Flight crews will get different meals than passengers. On most airlines the pilot and copilot will be served different meals to minimize the risks of possible food poisoning.
Once it is cooked, the food is blast chilled and placed in special refrigerators. First, they pack the food that needs to be re-heated on the plane in foil containers. All of the food is then covered with a vented lid. These trays are placed onto a cart and rolled into a big refrigerated room where they are organized according to flight number. They don't spend long inside the big refrigerator because all meals are made to be served the same day.
Health Concerns
It can't be easy to safely serve thousands of meals every day. In 2010 the United States Food and Drug Administration cited LSG Sky chefs and two other airline food preparers, Gate Gourmet and Flying Food Group, for health and sanitation violations. This followed investigations in 2009 and 2010. According to USA Today, the two companies combine serve over 100,000,000 meals to US and foreign airlines at US airports.
The report said that food was stored at improper temperatures, unclean equipment was used and some employees did not practice proper hygiene. Roy Costa, a public-health sanitarian and consultant, told USA Today that the food safety situation with in-flight meals in the U.S. is getting worse, not better.
Poor sanitary conditions pose a risk of food poisoning of thousands of passengers. All 3 companies stated that they work continuously to make sure their food is safe and have multiple levels of quality control in place. Both Gate Gourmet and Flying Food Group use independent auditors to ensure the quality of their food service.
And it is not just food preparation that is dangerous. Recently a New Zealand man died from choking on some beef during a flight from Singapore to Auckland. And there were nurses and a doctor on board.
How could that happen? People don't realize how fast a human being can choke. Death can result within 5 minutes if the air passageway is blocked. In the United States alone, over 3000 people die each year from choking. You better do what your mum told you and chew your food well.
Responding to consumer demand for healthier food, airlines are offering nutritional information and lighter fare. British Airways took steps to use organic ingredients that had less salt and saturated fat. Served in First Class, these choices are available on flights between London and many major cities.
Business class fliers can also get healthy, low-fat selections but the menus don¡¯t provide the extensive nutritional information found in First Class.
Experienced fliers often use the tactic of ordering special meals in order to get healthier, fresher fare. You have to plan ahead and reserve your meal. Just tell them that you have special diet requirements. But you can get fresher meals because special dietary selections are prepared differently. Virgin, for example, offers a variety of special meals¡ªamong them are:
Asian Vegetarian
Diabetic Meal
Gluten Free Meal
Hindu Meal
Kosher Meal
Muslim Meal
Low Salt Meal
Vegetarian Lactose Meal
Expecting Too Much?
Are we expecting too much from airline food? Comedian David Brenner might agree. He said once, ¡°I don¡¯t go to a diner expecting a flight to Los Angeles, so why should I get on a flight expecting an omelet?¡±
It is easy to blame the airlines but they aren¡¯t cutting costs just for fun. Consumers want low fares. The trick is to find the balance.
As Rico Gagliano reported in American Media Marketplace on NPR.org, ¡°Today, a round-trip ticket from D.C. to San Francisco costs about 300 bucks. Back in 1938, the same ticket also cost about 300 bucks. You got a free meal, but for that money you could've also bought a car.¡±
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