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Food Flight

By Beacon Staff

Did you know the essential difference between flying economy and first class on domestic airline routes is “seat pitch” and a “meal?” That’s really all there is and the price difference, in some cases, is ridiculous – both high and low.

Seat pitch refers to the amount of room between the tip of your nose and the back of the seat in front of you, which over the years has gotten tighter and tighter, especially when the person in front of you reclines that grand total of two and three-quarter inches that airlines allow their seats to go back. Seat pitch in economy has shrunk to such small dimensions now that the average person cannot open a laptop computer either on their lap or on the tray table.

But this is a column about food, so let’s talk about airline food in each cabin.

With few exceptions on domestic airlines flying domestic routes, real food is virtually non-existent in coach class unless you’re willing to pay for pre-packaged candy or other snack foods. If you flew before 2001, you know that most airlines served a meal in both cabins on flights in excess of two and a half or three hours. The quality of the food was great fodder for comedians as it seldom had any resemblance to real food.

There’s not a lot you can do with pre-cooked and flash-frozen food that has to be thawed and cooked in a microwave or convection device. And as any flight attendant is wont to tell you, “We are here for your safety,” and not – presumably – to be cooks.

You remember the drill: One cart came out with the food, followed by the drinks. It was usually chicken or pasta in unrecognizable preparations, wilted salads with artificially concocted dressings, a roll of some sort with an artificial spread, and an attempt at dessert. The Birds Eye TV Dinners of 1956 tasted better.

Later, the food service evolved (I use the term very loosely) into cardboard boxes with prepackaged sandwiches (stale is too kind a word) with prepackaged chips and prepackaged cookies.

On the other hand, if you sit in first class, your tray table is covered with a linen cloth and you drink from real glassware and china and there’s also a real cloth napkin. Breakfast is usually a choice of cold cereal or something like an omelet or waffle; fresh fruit; rolls and juice. There is real silverware, too, except for a time after 9/11 when the airlines switched to plastic knives.

First class travelers also have nearly unlimited alcoholic beverages at no additional charge, as opposed to coach class where current prices for beer and wine approach $5.00 to $7.00 and hard liquor is anywhere from $8.00 to $10.00. Some airlines now charge for soda pop and one tried to charge for water but that brought out enough negative press that they relented.

But let’s get down to the reality of this situation. Most airlines in this country continue to use a failed business model. For the most part, they believe they are in the business of flying aircraft from one point to another. They do not, despite their protestations to the contrary and/or their advertising, include anything about passenger comfort or care in their business plans. And why should they?

This flawed way of doing business is perpetuated by us poor saps who have to get to far-flung places in as little time as possible. It takes four to five days to drive cross-country. If you’re lucky enough to live in a major airline hub city, you can do it in about five or six hours. Others that live in cities where connections are de rigueur, will spend upwards of 20 hours because of layovers and connections.

Food in coach has become something of an attempt by the airlines to create a new profit center in much the same way as charging to talk to a reservations agent or for carrying your baggage in the cargo hold.

Food in first class is, without doubt, the most expensive food you will ever eat.

I’ll give just one example: A coach ticket from New York to Los Angeles on most of the major legacy carriers runs about $450 or less, depending on the fare war that may be occurring on any given day. That’s pretty cheap, especially if you’re willing to put up with the overcrowding and the hurry-up-and-wait that is airline travel today.

That same ticket in first class costs anywhere from $1,400 to $2,250. And if you decide to trade in your frequent flier miles for a first class seat, it’s even more expensive, considering what you paid to earn those miles and how much the airlines have increased the number of miles you have to use.

I don’t know about you, but as much as I like legroom and enough space to open up my laptop, I don’t think there’s an omelet in this world that’s worth $1,000.