Originally Posted by
rruaco
CO serve lunch at 10am (UK time) on the 8:40am LHR-EWR flight, then give you a snack at New York lunch time just prior to landing.
Why they can't hold the service by an hour (or do the meals in the other order) I do not know.
On every long-haul flight I've been on on any carrier, the biggest meal of the flight is served soon after takeoff, and is usually a dinner-type meal, even if they happen to call it "lunch" because of the time of day. This has been true whether the departure was at 9:30am, noon, afternoon, evening, or even 1am.
I think the reason for serving immediately is that for a flight that's long enough for 2 or 3 meal services, it would be perceived very negatively to tell passenger "we have fully-stocked galleys, will be serving you 2 (or 3) full meals, and know that some of you are hungry, but we're not going to give you any food right away because some of you may not be at mealtime."
The people who are not hungry are not forced to eat, or can eat lightly, and those that are can get their full meal.