Updated 21 September 2007

Let's start out with a reminder of domestic mealtimes (for reference).

Generally speaking, flights with food can be broken down into these types:
1) P.S. flights
2) Mainline & Business1 flights over 3.0 hours.
3) Mainline flights under 3.0 hours, but over 2.0 hours.
4) Business1 flights under 3.0 hours.
5) All other flights with an F cabin.


1) P.S. flights: F-Cabin can expect a delicious meal to be served for all non-redeye flights. Redeye flights can expect a fruit & cheese plate.


2) Mainline & Business1 flights over 3.0 hours: F-Cabin can expect meals according to the following scheduled flight departure times.
0500 - 0959 Breakfast
1000 - 1559 Lunch
1600 - 1930 Dinner
1930 - 0459 Snack Plate (aka the fruit and cheese plate)


3) Mainline flights (not Business1) under 3.0 hours but over 2.0 hours:
0500 - 0959 Breakfast
1000 - 1300 Lunch (ie cold sandwich or salad)
1301 - 1600 Nothing!
1601 - 1930 Dinner (ie cold sandwich or salad)
1931 - 0459 Nothing!


4) Business1 flights under 3.0 hours:
0500 - 1059 Continental style "semi-hot" breakfast (ie ham & cheese)
1100 - 1559 Light lunch (ie hot wrap or salad).
1600 - 1930 Light dinner (ie hot wrap or salad).
1930 - 0459 Snack Plate (aka the fruit and cheese plate).

Note, no meal is served on the following Business1 flights:
ORD-MSP
MSP-ORD
ORD-DCA
DCA-ORD
These flights will be served the "gold bag" of pre-packaged mixed nuts.

For information on Business1:
http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,51258,00.html


5) All other domestic flights with an F cabin:

So, what do you get on the other types of flights?
Mainline (non PS, non Business1) flights under 2.0 hours in length will receive the "gold bag" of pre-packaged mixed nuts.

For non-mainline F-Cabin over 2.0 hours length you should get a prepackaged "light" snack. This is usually a United Express SnackBox which varies based on the flight's operator.


Bottom line:
Call UA reservations and ask if you're getting a "snack," "snack plate," or "meal."
Snack - the gold bag of nut mix.
Snack Plate - the fruit and cheese plate.
Meal - a wrap, sandwich, or salad.

rch4u has posted some GREAT tips on how to find out what meal is served in F by using ITA. Unfortunately this only works if the flight is also sold as a codeshare.

IMPORTANT NOTES!
Some have reported that the fruit and cheese plate can be avoided by placing an order for a special meal. Good results have been posted regarding the "Low Fat" meal.


All about the sometimes dreadful Ex-Shuttle F-Cabin meal:
The 737-300's and 737-500's formerly used for the "Shuttle by United" service do not have ovens, refrigeration, or service carts. Therefore, meals are served from black plastic tv-dinner style compartment trays. Meals are kept chilled via dry ice. Therefore, your meal will be ice cold or room temperature. Trays have three compartments, one for the main course (sandwich or salad), and two others usually reserved for fruit and cheese. You'll get a prepackaged dessert and either a room temperature or ice cold roll.

For example at MHT, arriving aircraft all come from ORD and return back to ORD. All meals are loaded at ORD. So, for the MHT-ORD leg, the dry ice will have evaporated already and you will get a nice room temperature meal.

The Ex-Shuttle meals on the black plastic trays have also appeared on the other mainline aircraft types as well, on certain routes such as MHT-ORD and ORD-MHT. In this case, the route was scheduled to be operated by a 757-200. Meals came on the shuttle style black trays. Food was served cold, but rolls were warm and there were fresh baked cookies. Please post your encounters with these meals, so we can compile a list of routes where these meals are offered (regardless of aircraft type).

How to identify Ex-Shuttle 737's looking at the seat maps:
1) United identifies a Ex-Shuttle 737-300 as "North America Configuration 2." On this configuration, row 10 is the over-wing exit row and rows 22 & 23 exist.
2) The Ex-Shuttle 737-500 is identified as "North America Configuration 2" as well. On this configuration, Seats 9A & 9F do not exist and rows 20 & 21 do exist.

Also, all Ex-Shuttle aircraft have a total of two lavatories. Standard 737's have three lavatories.