As a newbie to US - How do US FA's take meal choices in F class on domestic flights and J on Int'l ? Is is consistent ala AA (odd flt.#=back to front and even flt.#=front to back)? Any info is greatly appreciated - kazman

I was just on a domestic F and, because I was in the 3rd row (last in F), I asked what the meal choices would be. Shrimp and chicken. I expressed my allergies to shrimp, and asked if she could start in row 3(assuming I'm not the only one allergic to Shrimp). She said "no problem", and that management used to have them go front to back on evens and back to front on odds. Now they're told to just start in the front regardless because there was no consistency in the ranks of FA's following the "standard", thereby confusing frequent travellers.

With Envoy, since it's 2 aisles, they start in the front and each FA hits about 3 people per row.

If you have aversions to beef, chicken, or seafood, I advise you to call USAirways prior to your flight and order a special meal. There are MANY that you can choose from, and therefore virtually be assured of your meal choice no matter where you're sitting in the cabin.

In my experience, it is consistently front to back regardless of flight number or direction. There was a thread here a while ago that argue whether there were differences in eastbound versus westbound when flying transcons. You might want to search for it... though I vaguely remember that no pattern was discerned.

RZ

Seems like the official policy is front first. Interestingly, I find that AA is more formal than most airlines about observing BEFO (Back first=even, Front first =odd); while DL supposedly has BEFO as a policy, but random experiences.

[This message has been edited by nologic (edited 05-08-2001).]

I've always seen them go front-to-back; never seen any other way. AA regularly does meal choices by flight number. UA does it differently every time. Sometimes hopping around by status, sometimes front-to-back, sometimes back-to-front.

Actually according to flight attendants on coast to coast US flights, there is a pattern. I was flying every week from CLT-LAX for about 5 months last year and got to know the flight attendants. If I remember correctly, it is front-to-back on east-to-west coast flights... and back-to-front on west-to-east coast flights.

They appear to have stopped the reverse serving on transcons over a year ago. They also used to ask CP's what they wanted before they served the rest of the cabin. That got stopped when they started enlarging the US1 category. If food on an airplane is important, be careful where you sit. On planes with 12 F seats , I refer to Row 3 as "the cereal row" at breakfast time. You can substitute the word "chicken" on flights later in the day (which raises the musical question...do you think there's a chicken left in the State of North Carolina after these guys get through?).

[This message has been edited by deelmakur (edited 05-12-2001).]

...waiting for geo1004 to throw in his comments on the "serve from the west" theory...

...looking for my notes. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

I guess this is yet another case where policy and practice are not in harmony.

nologic, the mnemonic is FEBO (Front Even, Back Odd) on AA flights and sometimes (but less and less often) on Delta.