Putting this in here just to give a comparison to the sad boxes. This was from a JAX-DFW AA flight a little over a month ago. JAX is a sad box station, and doesn't have catering facilities in general. This plane RON'd at JAX the night prior, but sat at JAX all morning and did the 11AM lunch time DFW flight. Usually, AA serves a trayed and plated continental breakfast consisting of non perishables, but better than a Bistro or Market box DL would do in this scenario for sure. For this lunch flight though, there was no pre ordering option, and there ended up only being one option onboard, this pasta. It was hot, assuming the pasta was non perishable and all they had to do was add hot water or something to it. It was simple, and it came with parmesan and red pepper flakes to spruce it up which I used, but it was actually not bad at all. Meanwhile DL would've probably served that Bistro or Market snack box junk since the plane RON'd.
Point is, Delta can and should do better here, this meal by AA was very easy to put together, their continental breakfast deal is also very easy to put together. And not sure how UA does their catering, but I also took an early AM meal flight on UA out of JAX a few weeks prior to this flight, and was offered 5 pre select options. The meal itself was ok at best but at the end of the day it was a hot meal which is more than DL could say, when UA is beating you on something catering wise too, then you have a problem since they're otherwise by far the worst of the big 3 for catering. If it's not an RON flight though, AA fully double caters the flight from the hub. Also took two DFW-JAX AA segments in the past month and a half, both of which had a full 5 option pre select menu and was able to have a great short rib on both of them. But if you're on DL even out of the hub from MSP/BOS-JAX, enjoy your premium sad box ham sandwich because the world's most profitable airline is too cheap to do hot meals even on the way FROM the hub too!