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

I've read some absolute horror stories about AA's veg meals in the past, has their been any improvement. Being a long-time resident of Atlanta, I didn't fly them much for a while and now that I am on AA more often, I am wondering about the meal service.

Have the options improved with being able to choose ahead?

Any recent reports on what they are serving?

There are several pretty substantial threads on meals, both domestic and international.

aa.com: Special Meals and Nut Allergies

has some basic information.

How did I not see this? I'll take a look. I just used a few basic searches and it didn't occur to me to search within the bigger threads :eek: There was a very old thread about the horrible veg meals a few years ago, but didn't see anything recently that said anything specifically about meatless options.

Thanks for the links.

About the special meals, yes. (Though is it really accurate? AA used to have a vegan special meal, not even a non-vegan vegetarian meal. But that page makes no mention of vegan, only vegetarian.)

But it doesn't explain to what degree you can count on one of the regular J longhaul meals itself being vegetarian (not vegan). For that, you have to consult other FTers (such as by reading the existing threads already linked here).

Do I need to pre-order a vegetarian meal or are they normally catered?
 

I'm taking my first flights with AA this month: LHR-ORD in business, and ORD-MCI in First.

As a regular vegetarian (no meat, no seafood, yes to dairy and everything else) do I need to order a 'special meal' or is this catered for already? I tried asking AA on Facebook but I didn't get a reply.

It's a bit hit and miss as some airlines require a meal request, and others give me a vegan meal, which means I miss out on chocolate and get given fruit instead, and I would've been better off saying nothing.

Also, is there a meal service in AA domestic first?

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

If you want a vegetarian meal, you must order it in advance.

Some domestic flights serve meals in F, but ORD-MCI might be too short to qualify for meal service.

Vegetarianism
 

AA usually as a pasta selection that is veggie
I ordered a veggie meal once it was worst then the pasta

The LHR-ORD flight will almost certainly have a vegetarian, non-vegan option on the regular menu (and it's fairly likely that the domestic leg will, as well). By calling AA, you can find out what the options are and pre-order.

Call in and ask what the meal selections will be on your LHR-ORD flight and see if any of the options work for you. If they do, preorder that. If they don't, then order a vegetarian special meal (which yes unfortunately will probably also be a vegan meal, and a bland meal, etc as AA seems to try and make their special meals fit as many special meal categories as possible).

Also vegetarian. I've found that in international J, regardless of catering station (LAX, GRU, DFW, JFK, ZRH, ICN, etc), the "vegetarian meal" is always much worse than the regular old pasta-option-that-happens-to-be-vegetarian; so for international, I'd just preorder the pasta option. Domestically you don't really have an option for a special meal but I've never not had a vegetarian pasta option available on my flight.

You could see if they offer an Indian (or other ethnic) vegetarian meal which is usually tastier than the pasta or vegan option.

In my experience chocolate is usually diluted with milk according to the ingredient list. At home I purchase chocolate without the dairy.

The OP says he/she eats dairy. And "milk chocolate" gets its name from the fact that milk is added.

Agreed - the vegetarian meals in Y can be dreadful. Wife and I flew DFW-GRU-DFW earlier this year and the veg meal ex-DFW was actually decent - labeled "pepper bean stew" or something similar - really it was a watered down version of channa masala - not great but still edible. Ex-GRU the veg meal was totally unrecognizable and hardly fit for human consumption. Thankfully the sympathetic FAs let us have the pasta entree.

I don't believe AA allows ethnic meal requests. Under Hindu/Indian meal on their website - it simply says "may we suggest our vegetarian meal" - or at least it used to say that. I'm too lazy to check it at the moment.

As much as we all hate the new AA for a million reasons, it is nice that they consistently have one veg option on most of their flights though. That does make it a lot easier. Even as an omnivore I don't like to eat meat with every meal, so I definitely appreciate that most AA flights have a veg option.