beckoa

I'd take that over shroom filled ravioli!

bigbirdwithsilverwings

are you sure???

BOB W

He is only complaining because they never serve oyster dishes

737fan1

+1 for me. I am the same type of business traveler. Most of my travel is business related with a company that will not pay for first on domestic travel. Is Alaska's First product better or even on par with their competition? Nope.... But I will take F upgrades on Alaska any day over coach on other airlines. So it looks like I am one of the few hoping to keep the AS F product that way it is as long as the upgrades keep coming. I regularly purchase expensive last minute tickets, so I assume AS targeting me is paying off for them.

91foxbody

I believe I've only sat in the older F seats, so I can't make that comparison personally. I've flown AA F mid-to-transcon this year, and the seats have been comparable but the food on AA was dramatically better than AS.

Of course, the drink selection and FA's are significantly better on AS. The bloody mary mix AS uses is divine, while the stuff they use on AA should be considered a crime.

Seat 2A

You win some, you lose some...

It's really a shame that Alaska's First Class food is so... whatever. To some extent flyers have themselves to blame for this as in most industry surveys about what matters most when choosing an airline, inflight food consistently ranks amongst the lowest of priorities. Seating comfort, on time performance, upgrades, timely baggage delivery, priority boarding all rank far ahead of meals.

Even back in the days when the airlines rolled out the trolleys and carved Chateaubriand seatside, there were still plenty of complaints about the meal service. It's a no win situation. Most all airlines go through the motions and talk up their inflight service with flowery prose but at the end of the flight, nobody's gonna stop flying Alaska because they don't like polenta or they didn't get a large enough portion of cod.

More and more - especially on non-transcon luncheon and dinner flights, I've taken to visiting Waji's in Seattle or any Asian type place like Panda Express to eat later during the flight. Those black bowls that Waji's uses will keep food pretty warm up to an hour and a half after purchasing it.

eponymous_coward

Absolutely. It was a lot easier to carve Chateaubriand when the government set your prices so everyone got a healthy profit margin, and the competition was all service because nobody could set lower or higher prices. It wasn't so easy to fly planes, though (I could count my plane flights on my hand before I turned 30, because my family didn't have lots of money for plane tickets growing up, and I mostly didn't either as a young adult).

But airplane meals were still the butt of jokes then. Imagine, blast chilling in bulk and reheating food in airplane ovens doesn't yield Michelin stars all the time.

I'm partial to Beecher's or the modest Alaska cheese and fruit tray myself if I need food on the plane. Hits the spot. But the food available in airports for purchase these days is better than I recall in the past. Sometimes a bit pricey but I've had decent steak sandwiches and chop salad in LAS at their steakhouse in T3, or had a good bite at Vino Volo in SEA/IAD/SFO if I have time to kill before flying (I've even baked in time occasionally for the meal). No airplane oven reheating required, either.

formeraa

OMG, this! I remember discovering the first class mileage upgrade when I was in school in the 80's. F on UA's "Ocean to Ocean" service on the DC-10. That was the best domestic airplane meal ever.

Back to the topic at hand, I will purchase a $50 upgrade to F on AS , when available. While F is not luxurious like in the olden days, it is still much better than Y.

Brianblanco

Flew PDX to LAX on Monday on Delta because the next AS flight was 4 hours later and like a slap in the face to AS they had 4 different snacks to choose from in economy including the Biscoff and a bag of almonds. Attendant said we could have all 4 if we wanted them. My colleague had a good suggestion: rather than 75K on AS, shoot for gold on both Delta and AS. Thinking about that.

beckoa

Reminds me of the time a FA offered to re-heat my fried saimin on a redeye Took them up on it, but only got it a bit warmer

kevincrumbs

FWIW, I have been on this same route twice in the past few months in F on the 6:30pm flight and two passes of the snack basket was the only thing offered both times. I've done the same route in F on AS and it has always featured something more substantial, such as a chicken salad. So while DL seems to be nicer in the back, AS wins up front.

PV_Premier

On the other hand, DL publishes and almost always sticks to their F meal mileage cutoffs and options. AS, especially mid-con and trans-con, is quite inconsistent IME.

From DL.com (PDX-LAX is 834 miles):

makfan

Many airports have upgraded their food in the terminals, and when time permits I take advantage of that. Of course, when your 90 minute connection becomes 35, you are stuck with the four pieces of lettuce and two bites of chicken that they call a snack these days.

finlandia

That's the key point. Today, you can get a meal in most major airports that's going to be at least pretty good. Competing with that on shorter flights just doesn't seem like it's worth it to me. It's those long flights that I scrutinize the catering, because I'll be hungry at some point.

tusphotog

You haven't lived until you've made a quesadilla on an airplane coffee maker (don't overfill it because maintenance hates scraping burnt cheese off the hot plate...or so I'm told).

Thankfully most airports I find myself in over and over have really, really upgraded their food options. Seattle is finally getting better and more options, though I think Waji's has really gone downhill recently. I used to schedule extra time when I'd connect in Atlanta to hit my favorite airport restaurant: Ecco.

I'm perfectly happy with an orange tea or water and some biscoff on the plane.