Originally Posted by
aluminumdriver
But it is a good reminder to all passengers that if you need something special for medical or dietary reasons, you should take care of it yourself versus leaving it to a corporation that is moving a quarter of a million passengers a day worldwide to handle for you.
Providing special meals on board that are requested in advance is something
that UA advertises. So, should passengers not rely upon what UA advertises ? Or is this just another example of misleading advertising, like UA's "truly luxurious" description of their current Intl F seats ?
Also, there is no charge for a special meal. The OP reserved one and he rightfully expected to receive one. UA wasn't going to do him a favor by loading his special meal on board. They were supposed to do it.
In comparison, many Intl airlines, which handle more meals than UA, don't botch special meal requests as often as UA. The problem is with UA, not the passenger. Total UA passenger volume is of no consequence. A large number of UA flights offer no meals or just BoB snackboxes, so they should be excluded.
Having said this, the OP should have brought his own baby food on board, and not rely upon the airline for this. We always bring our own when traveling with our infant on SQ/UA/EK/TG in C, because there is a good probability our infant child will not like the brand/flavor offered on board. Having said that, something is always available.
The problem is that UA has known about these problems for years, but does nothing but hand out miles/vouchers instead of fixing the problem.