Originally Posted by
goodeats21
Yes.
The casserole dish ("dog bowl") approach takes very little labor. Dishes are just put in oven, take the cover off, and serve. Plated service means individual containers of components are heated, then each component is individually placed onto a plate. Better quality all around.
A bowl of ice cream doesn't really take much more labor, but the former sundae service, with individual toppings on request, does. And again, it is a significantly better, with choice of toppings, warmed (or at least room temp), instead of a frozen block of pre-made serving.
The cut in staffing on Intl flights is the big news story out of all of this. It impacts every part of the soft service, and will not be easily reversed.
If the food was decent, and not the equivalent of something that would be served in Y, I wouldn't have beef (no pun intended) with the casserole dish. But the portions are smaller (in order to fit in the dish), the food doesn't cook evenly resulting in cold or burnt items (vegetable/sides really should be separate from meat when heated up), and it's by no means a premium offering. The excuse of it being a result of cutting staffing is ridiculous. The FA's still have to pull food out of the ovens and put it on a tray; if they did it the old way by plopping a cup of vegetables and/or side, and then doing the same with the meat/protein/pasta its not going to add 30 mins of extra effort. They've cut so many other elements that the whole service flow drinks/meal/collect could be done in half of the time than it was being done during the BusinessFirst and early Polaris days. They could easily improve what's offered and still have a shorter service flow than pre-CoVid.