Jan 29, 2017, 11:30 am

FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides

Last edit by: Prospero

Special meals and nut allergies and Special meals and dietary requests

AA currently makes a number of “special meals” available on certain flights; they must be requested at least 24 hours in advance. Please see this page on AA.com for current information.

"Special meals are available on select flights with scheduled, complimentary meal service. Similar to scheduled meal service, they are based on departure time, destination and flight length. Menus vary monthly to ensure fresh and seasonal ingredients." See listing of special meals available from AA below.

How to request your special meal:

Make sure your flight has scheduled meal service
Determine which specialty meal meets your need
Call to order

This option is available at least 24 hours before and up to 30 days in advance of your departure.
Log into your AA account
Select on Your Trips
Select View/Change on your reservation
Go down to Reserve a Meal.
When you arrive at the airport, advise the gate agent and flight attendants that you ordered a special meal
Call Reservations if you booked through American Airlines or contact your travel agent if you booked with an agency.

Contact Reservations (link)

For your interest, airline meal codes for SPML offerings on AA. The list of options may appear extensive but in practice the variety is much reduced due to duplication

AVML - Asian Vegetarian Meal
BBML - Baby / Infant Food
BLML - Bland Meal
CHML - Children’s Meal
DBML - Diabetic Meal
GFML - Gluten-free Meal
HNML - Hindu Meal
KSML - Kosher (Jewish) Meal
LFML – Low Fat Meal
LSML – Low Sodium Meal
MOML - Muslim (Halal) Meal
NLML – Non-Lactose Meal
VGML - Vegetarian Meal (non-dairy)
VLML – Vegetarian Lacto-ovo Meal
VVML – Vegetarian Vegan Meal

Other special meal codes may be viewed at AirlinesMeals.com here.

From British Airways, definitions of these meals:

Asian vegetarian - Does not contain fish, shellfish, meat, poultry or eggs. It is a meatless meal and spicy in content.
Baby meal - ?
Bland - For those with digestive tract and gut disorders. Excludes mustard, pickles, garlic, fried and fatty food.
Child meal - Contains a combination of familiar and fun foods.
Diabetic - For those who need to manage blood sugar levels. Foods excluded are sugars, syrups, jams, cakes and chocolate, unless specifically for diabetics.
Gluten intolerant - Foods excluded are wheat or wheat flour, barley oats and rye, bread, cakes (unless wheat free), pastry, sausages or any flour based products.
Hindu - Does not contain beef, beef derivatives, veal or pork, it is not a meatless meal.
Kosher Meal - These meals are prepared to comply with Jewish dietary laws.
Lacto-ovo vegetarian - Does not contain meat, fish or seafood. May contain dairy products such as milk, butter, cheese and eggs etc.
Low fat - High fibre meal with reduced amounts of fat.
Low lactose - Excludes cheese, dairy products and their derivatives and lactose or milk products.
Low salt - Excludes use of salt, MSG and baking soda/powder, instead herbs and spices are used to flavour the meal.
Muslim Meal - Does not contain pork, by-products of pork or foodstuffs containing alcohol. All meats come from ritually slaughtered animals.
Vegan vegetarian - Does not contain meat, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, dairy products or derivatives. If vegan is not specified, then a lacto ovo meal will be provided.

Archive of previous posts: ARCHIVE: Ordering SPML / Special Meal - how, what (consolidated)

Guide: AA SPML - Special Meal (vegetarian, gluten intolerant, child, etc.)

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Mar 10, 2017, 7:07 am

#61

Dallas49er

Join Date: May 2004

Location: DFW-In Plano & CDG-In the 11th

Programs: DL Diamond, AA revenue negative, Bonvoy Titanium +, Avis likes me

Posts: 3,209

One does not fly to eat

Whether in J or Y, nothing says you can't bring your own. And terminal D in DFW has some excellent choices.

Mar 10, 2017, 7:14 am

#62

rjw242

Join Date: Jul 2010

Location: SFO

Programs: AA EXP

Posts: 5,270

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielonn

AA should do curries or a nice cous cous with garbanzo beans carrots tomatoes served with falafel hummus baba ganoush and pita bread. A orzo or tabouli salad.

Lifeways Kefir and for dessert an apple cake.

For breakfast apple crepes. Fruit Greek yoghurt granola strawberris blueberries .

Snack could be a cheese and sundried tomato baked ziti pasta with dolmades grape leaf salad and a vegan brownie.

Thoughts?

Not sure how this is relevant to your upcoming flight.

Mar 10, 2017, 7:45 am

#63

Antarius

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Aug 2012

Location: KHOU/KIAH

Programs: AA EXP | Marriott Bonvoy Titanium| Hyatt Globalist

Posts: 11,235

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielonn

Id like a pony too.

Mar 11, 2017, 11:30 am

#64

sdsearch

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Jan 2005

Location: home = LAX

Posts: 25,933

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielonn

Fly AA partner QR (Qatar). I was amazed at the food; the first time I've tasted airline food which tasted better than most of the restaurant food I had on the trip. (I was in business class on an AA award to South Africa; I don't know how their economy class food compares.)

Sep 21, 2017, 7:58 am

#65

sadeconomy

Join Date: Aug 2016

Programs: AA, BA, B6, DL, D8, EI

Posts: 38

Sorry if this has been covered: do you really have to call to request a special meal? I don't see the option to request in advance online.

Sep 21, 2017, 9:24 am

#66

SeeBuyFly

Join Date: Dec 2004

Posts: 5,631

Quote:

Originally Posted by sadeconomy

Sorry if this has been covered: do you really have to call to request a special meal? I don't see the option to request in advance online.

It has been covered, 11 posts before yours.

Sep 21, 2017, 9:51 am

#67

sadeconomy

Join Date: Aug 2016

Programs: AA, BA, B6, DL, D8, EI

Posts: 38

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeeBuyFly

It has been covered, 11 posts before yours.

Things can change in seven months but thank you for the very helpful answer.

Others: DM on Twitter with AA was able to take care of this without needing to call.

Nov 29, 2017, 10:55 pm

#68

bundaburg

Join Date: Apr 2003

Location: Sydney

Programs: SPG Plt, AA Exec Plt

Posts: 206

Special Meals

Hi,
I have placed a request in my booking for a special meal.
In managing my booking online, the option to reserve a meal comes up. In the options I get the meal (Roasted Duck Breast etc) and under that the "special meal" options appear. Am I right in assuming that these are the meals for everyone and not necessarily okay to eat with food intolerance? I am leaning towards just leaving it blank and my original request as is.

Also, does being on waitlist for SWU and having a special meal affect the chances of this going through?

Thanks!

Nov 30, 2017, 1:13 pm

#69

sdsearch

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Jan 2005

Location: home = LAX

Posts: 25,933

Quote:

Originally Posted by bundaburg

There's a way to request special meals at booking? Is it a thing where you choose among the handful of available types of special meals, or a write-in field? (If a write-in field, I'd worry that they won't read it until it's too late, and won't get you the right type of meal. I've always called AA on the phone to request a special meal.)

AA doesn't have special meals for every food intolerance. (My niece is allergic to citrus, and there's no "guaranteed-citrus-free" special meal.) They just have a handful of "catch-call" special meals. That's why a conversation with an AA agent may be necessary to figure out which kind of special meal would work best for you.

As to the SWU, I don't know whether it affects your upgrade chances. If you do get upgraded at the last minute, you might get asked by the FA whether you want to your special meal from the original cabin or a regular meal from your new cabin.

Dec 6, 2017, 8:55 am

#70

JDiver

Moderator: American AAdvantage

Join Date: May 2000

Location: NorCal - SMF area

Programs: AA LT Plat; HH LT Diamond, Maître-plongeur des Muccis

Posts: 62,948

Quote:

Originally Posted by bundaburg

Bundy, 😉

Twitter might be your best way to request a SPML (read the Wikipost at the top of the page). If you’re upgraded, they will generally still cater your special meal; it may be useful to alert an FA you have a SPML and were upgraded, in that case.

Dec 6, 2017, 10:15 pm

#71

SkyTeam777

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: May 2002

Location: NC

Programs: AAConciergeKey/1MM, DL DM/2 MM, UA Gold,Hilton Diamond, IHG Plat, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Titanium

Posts: 11,967

Anyone know what the Asian Veg meal is on domestic, first flights? I am flying SFO-CLT, and sometimes you just get cereal (hardly fitting the spicy Asian Veg description). Any experiences?

Dec 7, 2017, 5:42 am

#72

Acid

Join Date: Dec 2008

Location: NYC

Programs: BA Gold, HH Diamond, Marriott Gold

Posts: 1,259

I had the Hindu Meal on a recent JFK-LHR flight. It was Indian food with rice and some veg curry and lentils(not the best, but surprised to see it on AA).
Morning breakfast was also a bit different than the regular box - fresh fruits (much better than flat top muffin) and a granola bar.

Dec 7, 2017, 1:34 pm

#73

sdsearch

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Jan 2005

Location: home = LAX

Posts: 25,933

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkyTeam777

Anyone know what the Asian Veg meal is on domestic, first flights? I am flying SFO-CLT, and sometimes you just get cereal (hardly fitting the spicy Asian Veg description). Any experiences?

You need to understand that AA does not actually have separate meals, for every route, of all the types of meals they claim to have. Many are "consolidated", ie, they find some meal that is simultaneously, Asian-enough, vegan (and thus vegetarian), gluten-free (thus other grains than wheat), low salt, etc, etc. And then whichever one of those your order, you get the same one (though the "consolidated" meal itself may change from day to day and meal period to meal period).

So don't rely on descriptions too much. The special meals are more about what's not included, than about what is included.

A true "Asian" Veg meal might only exist on routes to / from Asia. On other routes, they are more likely to substitute as "consolidated" meal. And they're especially likely to substitute an "consolidated" meal at breakfast, since they don't have enough imagination to think up different meals for breakfast.

Dec 7, 2017, 1:52 pm

#74

Antarius

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Aug 2012

Location: KHOU/KIAH

Programs: AA EXP | Marriott Bonvoy Titanium| Hyatt Globalist

Posts: 11,235

Quote:

Originally Posted by bundaburg

Hi,
Also, does being on waitlist for SWU and having a special meal affect the chances of this going through?
Thanks!

It does not.

Dec 8, 2017, 12:01 pm

#75

ft4lyf

Join Date: Feb 2015

Posts: 1,015

Hello. Not sure where best to ask this question:
I have two domestic flights coming up.
In one, a choice is the rotolo
In the other flight is pomodoro lasagna

Does anyone know if either of these items contain meat products? I know they contain a bunch of cheese
I cannot understand if the items are Vegetarian or not.
Any help appreciated.

The other choices on those flights definitely contain meat