Originally Posted by
dilanesp
....Nobody has to like the status quo. If what a particular traveler wants is the type of thing you see in 1960's travel brochures, with the stewardesses rolling the chateubriand cart through the aisle and carving it, well, I can see how that traveler would hate what FC dining has become...
Well, those were the times of regulated airfares/routings. The quality definitely started going down after deregulation, as price became the factor to attract customers and airlines had to find ways to cut costs. I think the drop in quality on U.S. airlines became precipitous after Bethune left CO. Nowadays, it's easy for airlines to continually chip away at food costs (or maintain the status quo), rather than increase cost/quality. The Polaris meals one sees now is probably the new norm and expecting it to get better might be a bit optimistic.