apodo77

If you are expecting a full meal or a sandwich on a domestic US carrier after 9 pm you are going to be quite disappointed except for a few exceptions by each carrier (mostly TCON's like LAX-JFK):

Delta: 1400+ miles
Full meal service will be offered between 5am-8pm. Breakfast is served for flights departing up to 9:45AM, and full lunch/dinner service after that. NOTE: For flights departing between 8pm and 9pm a light meal service, referred to as "refreshments" on delta.com, will be offered. After 9pm it is the snack basket only on all but select routes.

United: 800 to 1,499 miles: Full meal service including 2 entrée choices on most flights departing between 5:00am and 8:00pm. all flights departing after 8:01pm, a selection of premium snacks and fresh fruit will be offered.

1,500 to 2,299 miles: Full meal service on flights departing between 5:00am and 9:00pm. On flights departing after 9:01pm, a selection of premium snacks and fresh fruit will be offered

AA:Basically, in its' best condensed form, you should expect to receive a meal between 4:59am - 8pm on flights longer than 900 miles, which equals about two hours in the air. From that point, there are exceptions, and specific timing parameters.

pacman3

Thanks Apodo - do a couple of chocolate chip cookies qualify as premium snacks on late night flights on AA, DL, and UA (leaving aside the fresh fruits)?

Clearly, AS has lost its compass on what F class customers (not the "upgrades" because of some pseudo-status) expect on a 3-4 hour flight, irrespective of time of day. This from a North-westerner who would like to support the 'hometown' carrier. The question isn't whether there is a race to the bottom for domestic service by US carriers (with the exception, as one stated, for a few trans-con sectors - one might ask why that's the case!), it's whether Alaska values its F class customers by throwing an oreo or two at them on late night flights. There are a number of people here who think it is justifiable - fly away! I'll take it as just another indication of the state of where domestic air travel has sunk. I'll confess I didn't expect it from AS.

BOB W

Pick a flight, any flight on AS that is more than 5 days out (when the first UG's start to clear) and you will see a fair to large number of seats taken on almost any flight. Granted, there are some F awards taken, limited by AS, but not that many so AS is selling F seats on a regular basis.

I don't expect a full meal at midnight, and I do like the cookies (although they are sometimes a bit under baked), but the point is that AS wants to promote their F experience but does little to support that "want".

And the O in oreo should be Oreo

beckoa

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Someone just had to mention Oreo.

On a Hawaii flight to the islands (LIH iirc) this year and someone was passing around Oreos to try (iirc a new type and it was an Oreo rep). Sadly I didn't try for some reason.

WhIteSidE

I'll weigh in here from the side of someone who would happily go for the cheese plate late at night / early morning. I often make trips short to enjoy some time at home. It's not at all unusual for me to have 1-2 day trips where I take a red eye or early morning departure and similarly on the return. I get 1-2 more usable days at home, and especially with a weekend before or after, that means a lot to me.

It's not at all unusual for me to spend time working with customers, partners or staff until 7pm or later and then run to the airport for a late night flight. Indeed, the very first time I met beckoa was on the late evening departure from LIH, where I'd been working with a customer until less than 2 hours before the flight. While the flight was somewhat delayed, by that time I was already back at the airport and no food option presented itself.

That flight at least offers a cheese plate, but I would have happily chowed down on some of the delicious local pasta they cater in LIH. In a similar vein, late/early flights may also be an artifact of international connections, IRROPs, etc. Providing some option for late night food would be a welcome option. Heck, do what some of the asian carriers do and stock some dry ramen cups or noodle bowls. They're shelf stable and may be prepared using the hot water already available.

In some cases, I'll certainly lean my seat back and attempt to time travel to my destination, but there are times where a small meal would make me a lot less hangry with the universe.