Airline food quality: tray tables have turned

[NickN]

I really enjoyed this read, I hope you guys do as well. Alot of Australian based information too.

Every bean must count as airlines face diminishing profits and ever-critical inflight diners, writes Patricia Maunder.

There's a restaurant in Taipei called A380 In-Flight Kitchen. In a space decked out like an aircraft cabin, staff dressed as flight attendants say "welcome aboard" and serve compartmentalised meals akin to those consumed at 40,000 feet.

"There are customers who come in and say: 'Is this real airline food?"' business operations manager Emily Lu told Reuters. Her response is no: "Airline food doesn't taste good."

We are fascinated by airline food despite its poor reputation. For most travellers the sky-high meal is the significant part of a long-haul flight, a conversation favourite and, increasingly, something to complain about.

Airline food didn't always have a bad reputation. Commercial aviation's first few decades, straddling World War II, emulated ocean-liner luxury. There were beds and fine food, onboard chefs and tablecloths. After long-haul flying opened up to the masses in the 1960s and '70s, meals became the focus of accountants. As rising costs and competition have trimmed profit margins, many airlines have replaced hot meals with cold snacks or nothing at all.

A reviewer on airguideonline.com echoes a common complaint: "I pay $264 for a ticket and all they can afford is 15 peanuts and a cookie?" This was "dinner" on a domestic flight in the US, where economising on in-flight food is common.

An American travel writer, John Vlahides, blames this trend on the much-publicised decision by American Airlines in the 1980s to "remove olives from its first-class salads", which saved the airline a reported $40,000 in one year. "This started a domino effect of cheapening food standards," he says.

Vlahides is the founding editor of travel website 71miles.com, a presenter on the coming television series Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled and has a qualification in classic French cooking.

"First class is obviously the best, if only because they don't use trays and instead bring you food on china," Vlahides says. "But the details that define a true top-end meal are often missing: meats that should be served rare are often overcooked; wine service sometimes comes after food is presented."

His opinion of many business-class meals is lower. Flying business class with United Airlines recently, for example, Vlahides says he was served lasagne made with Boursin-brand cheese. "Who in god's name would honestly believe that salty, nasty Boursin cheese, mixed with tomato sauce and dumped between two flaccid, soggy sheets of lukewarm pasta, would make an appropriate meal in the front of the plane?" he asks.

Bean-counters are partly to blame for such experiences saving a few cents on each meal means significant savings on thousands of flights and millions of customers. However, there are many other challenges beyond cost in getting food to your tray table.

Perhaps the greatest is space and not just passengers' lack of table and elbow room. Everything loaded onto planes must conform to precise sizes and weights. There is no room on a stacked trolley for bread rolls a centimetre too high.

Hygiene is critical and standards are high and rigorously maintained in aviation catering facilities. When Traveller visited Q Catering's facilities at Melbourne Airport, every surface was spotless, all employees clad in white coats and hair nets.

Q Catering produces 38 million meals a year at seven Australian bases, supplying 275,000 flights annually for customers including Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways.

The Melbourne facility, which produces an average of 170,000 meals a week, has vast preparation areas filled with industrial kitchen equipment and tables covered in scores of identical dishes. Each is a perfect replica of the photograph staff work from, below which are exact weight and volume requirements.

The importance of maintaining the "cold chain" is emphasised repeatedly that is, keeping food within a strict temperature range throughout the supply chain, rather than allowing the temperature to fluctuate repeatedly. Hot meals are chilled rapidly or frozen and remain so until being reheated onboard. The cold chain is part of the remarkable logistical challenge of getting the right number and types of meals on the right plane at the right time, during the short period that aircraft are on the ground. When flights are delayed or late changes are made to bookings, the logistical challenge escalates.

Add these other challenges to delivering an enjoyable meal: the convection ovens still used widely on aircraft produce relatively long, slow, uneven reheating, best suited to curries and casseroles; there can be no open flames onboard; blunt, usually plastic, knives mean meals including steak are unsuitable; and the low moisture levels in cabin air dulls the palate.

In the past decade some airlines have invested heavily in improving in-flight dining at the front of the plane, as that's where profits are made.

A few airlines, including Gulf Air, have reintroduced onboard chefs and several airlines associate themselves with celebrity chefs. Singapore Airlines, for example, has an "international culinary panel" that includes Gordon Ramsay and Matt Moran, of Sydney restaurant Aria.

Another prominent Sydney chef, Rockpool's Neil Perry, was approached by Qantas to consult in 1997. He was reluctant to put his name to recipes handed over to global catering facilities and crews, so he took a hands-on approach, establishing Rockpool Consulting with its own staff.

"We not only wrote menus but we wrote a complete galley management system," says Perry of his involvement with Qantas first and international business class. "We took out the serving dish that was just baked in the oven and created plating in the sky," he says.

When joining Qantas, Perry said he wanted to "get back to basics" and provide fresh, good quality salads, bread, cheese and seasonal fruit and vegetables. "They were the things that I saw were fundamental, that I saw a lot of airlines weren't doing properly."

Today, the best in-flight dining is akin to a restaurant experience, with crew trained to meet top waiters' standards and front-end passengers given significant choice about what and when they eat and drink.

That's no comfort if you're flying economy, though developments at the front of the plane, such as computer-controlled steam ovens, which cook more evenly and retain moisture better than convection ovens, are trickling down. The extra space on A380s has improved flexibility in food preparation but don't expect innovations such as toasters to be available en masse.

Some seasoned economy-class travellers claim that special meals are created with more care and are usually served first, so they recommend pre-ordering a kosher meal, for example. It will not gurantee a varied menu, however a Qantas economy customer, David Musgrave, from Melbourne, who commuted weekly to Adelaide for six months recently, says "I get vegan meals and they taste quite good. But between September and March I got the same Cajun bean dinner 21 times in a row."

Frequent flyer Vlahides has simple advice for economy passengers: "If you really care about what you eat in the air, bring your own food."

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/airline...z.html?page=-1

[Robert Zweck]

Fond memories of the delicious Danish pastries in First Class on Ansett.

Well worth the trip.

[Raymond Rowe]

Have had many an enjoying meal at the heights while flying.Some of my favourites were the hot breakfasts on the early morning flights.

[Philip Argy]

Ansett flights between west and east coasts had excellent catering, especially if you were lucky enough to be seated close to the front. I think Ansett, and its then Star Alliance partner, United, were among the first airlines to introduce ice creams for dessert, and they were an excellent innovation that many airlines have since copied.

[Raymond Rowe]

Nothing like working the night shift and meeting the flight from Perth.Catering always did well for the boys on night shift and hot nights one of the boys would hit you with a solid brick if you were down on the ground.Hot nights the ice creams were great.So were the first class meals coming back from perth.

[D Chan]

is it me or does this piece sound like a Q Catering advert?

[Grant Smith]

"Some seasoned economy-class travellers claim that special meals are created with more care and are usually served first, so they recommend pre-ordering a kosher meal, for example."


Definitely have to agree with this comment, I picked up on this idea whilst doing a SINBKK sector late last year with TG with a muslim friend of mine.

She had ordered the MOML due to religous reasons and the meal looked and tasted damn fine!

Ever since, I've ordered the MOML and despite the strange looks from crews - I've been satisified every time.

[David M]

There's a restaurant in Taipei called A380 In-Flight Kitchen. In a space decked out like an aircraft cabin, staff dressed as flight attendants say "welcome aboard" and serve compartmentalised meals akin to those consumed at 40,000 feet.

Great advertising for Air Chittock, but it's Scarborough not Taipei!

David.M.

[Andrew P]

only problem with pre-ordering a special meal, is forget the chance of being upgraded, as meal will be in the loading system by the time you get to check-in, and they cant give it to some else, say in Y

[Grant Smith]

Banjo,

That's not totally true, you can still be upgraded and take your special meal request at the same time..