I also think there’s a bit of a confusion between no choice of meal and no meal loaded in Club Europe, this should not happen at all in Club World that there is NO meal whatsoever loaded for a commercial Customer.

I think the main problem here is nowadays that handling agents don’t even check anymore how many meals are loaded answers happily sell upgrades from outstations.

When I was a Senior Crew member I always knew how many meals I had and double checked figures with the Ramp agent. When this didn’t tally up I asked about late bookings (48hrs then, let’s not go there) or upgrades.

the amount of times I was assured that Customers were “informed of no meal” which quickly became apparent that this want the case when speaking to affected Customers was on a very regular basis, they simply didn’t want to have that conversation at the Gate. 95% of the times I had refusals and could get back to those late bookings or paid/involuntary upgrades and offer them something but it’s all about how it’s been handled.

With many “newer” Inflight Leads and Inflight Managers maybe this doesn’t get handled just as well but we also all know that in recent months catering operations on shorthaul have been a bit hit and miss for one reason or another.

In terms of food preferences (no red meat, no vegetarian, no chicken, no pork, no pasta and so on) no airline in the world will ever satisfy everyone’s needs or requirements, whether you like it or not.