MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

I'm assuming the US4 will use this "opportunity" to realign inflight food and beverage service. Id' have to wonder was the profit margin on non MCE alcohol sales that material enough to compensate for the seemingly increasing inflight behavior incidents (presumably most of these paxs likely started drinking while on the ground and possibly should have been denied boarding). Is providing every pax a bag with a small water and a tiny snack more cost effective than catering carts and how necessary is it to have a beverage service in Y for flights less than 2.5 hours.

Presumably if AA wants to entice paxs to pay for domestic F/upfare to F AA will still need to have an enhanced beverage and food service over Y. But I do see the meal window increasing (IIRC for LUS it was 3.5 hours) and cold plating over warm plating for breakfast and lunch.

9/11 was the beginning of the end of meals in Y, blankets and pillows in Y and in some cases cut backs in domestic F catering. I remember in the 1990s flying JFK/LAX on UA in Y. You got a beverage service followed by a hot meal with another beverage service and snack box (with something like a cold lunch) 90 minutes from landing. How times have changed.

FlyDeltaMD88

Even after 9/11 up until the 2008 recession you still got some snacks in Y. I flew LUS from LGA to RSW and still got some decent snacks that would be considered "BOB" now.

safari ari

Just flew AS F for the first time during COVID, even on a sub 600 mile flight I was given a (with two options) snack box. Weirdly it was delivered with my adult beverage, AA must think covid will attach itself to snacks but not drinks.

CLT

Yes I remember UA used to code their meal service on California-Northeast transcons as "BS" or "LS" with a sandwich usually served prior to arrival. I remember US used to do a plated pre-arrival meal in F on transcon flights as well.

Looking back, I actually miss Y meals. Contrary to popular belief, I don't remember them being horrible. I do remember US/AA/UA being much more generous with their food service in Y than CO/DL/NW. US used to do a full hot meal service in the back on Northeast-Florida runs while CO/DL did not. I remember having a hot breakfast in Y in August 2001 on LGA-YYZ and a hot lunch on ALB-ORD, both on AA S80s. Good times! The flying public essentially did this to themselves though. An old friend who worked in management at US told me once that when they first trialed BOB in lieu of meal service, a good number of his colleagues expected the masses would complain and reject it, and they would have to go back to full service.

I remember reading that the US3 has never made a profit from BOB food sales, they simply are just regaining the dollars that would have been lost had they provided a complimentary service. I would assume that the US3 doesn't turn a huge profit on alcohol sales domestically as well.

The LUS meal service policy was indeed 3.5 hours, crafted IMO so they could get away with no providing meals on PHL-Florida and the lower-yielding CLT-Northern Caribbean runs. I don't think we will see snack basket only for flights less than 3.5 hours (that was US policy) but rather a plated snack service instead.
Why? I would much rather have a really nice salad with smoked salmon, a fruit bowl, and a piece of warm bread for lunch than the slop they pass off as chicken enchiladas.

Let's face it: the domestic F meals are essentially the same Y meals they served pre 9/11.

cmd320

Because there is a 0% chance AA will be able to execute that properly. A salad with smoked salmon will end up being iceberg with farm-raised Atlantic salmon that’s so tough and dried out you can’t cut it with the knife they give you. Fruit bowl will consist of raw melon, rotten grapes, and canned pineapple, and the warm bread will be a piece of Wonder Bread thrown in the oven for five minutes tossed on a plastic tray by a surly FA.

And for me, a salad doesn’t cut it on a 3+ hour flight in a premium cabin. 90 minutes as a snack? Sure. Midcon BoB, maybe.

What really should happen would be going back to the proper meals and meal windows AA used pre-merger. Though it has been made pretty clear AA doesn’t have much ability to offer a decent premium product these days, COVID or not.

enviroian

At this point I'd appreciate more if AA just told us they are in financially difficult times and as a result are pulling back F&B extensively rather than strategically cherry pick away F&B offerings randomly.

Herb687

Those UA transcons were even better in F. You don't have to go too far back to find UA's "Deli Buffet" in F as the second service on morning transcons. In my lifetime, the UA Deli Buffet was an actual buffet. Even on narrowbodies (DC-8). This is not ancient history.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

IIRC in 2004 I think America West was the first to introduce BOB in Y. Within a year or two all other airlines followed other than CO which held out for a few more years. As much as I like the idea of "fresh food" it's likely very expensive for the airlines to execute and given domestic F is made up of mostly upgrades and upfares it can't be justify with today's new reality. Now I'd go for some decent BOB in F (which you could pre-order) as long as they keep the booze free.

Tribeca725

Yes, I remember this in 2000 on a 319 from PHL to LAX. I remember my first morning transcon post-9/11 and was quite surprised that the second service was a snack basket run. At least in more recent years, AA would have a fruit and cheese plate towards the end of the flight (at least on JFK-SFO/LAX). Not sure if that's still the case.

enviroian

Right around the same time Bethune was touting "meals at mealtimes"

CLT

UA still was doing pre-arrival meals on their PS flights. While things went downhill since PS was first introduced in 2005 (usually had a choice between a chilled seafood plate with salad or a deli plate), they still were offering a choice of wraps/sandwiches before arrival pre-COVID. I don't think AA offered the fruit/cheese plate since the merger.

enviroian

I'll be trying my call button today. My first leg is in coach to CLT (I'm 4 out of 10 for zero seats) but already upgraded on the 175 a/c to GRR.

SFTNYC

IIRC the rationale given at US for the 3.5 hour (~1,500 mile) meal window (versus other carriers' prevailing ~900 mile windows) was that US' network didn't produce as much of a revenue premium in F/ have as much paid F as other carriers (hubs in PHL/CLT/PHX versus NYC, ORD, SFO, etc.).

It's hard to believe they're not making money on selling a $7/8 beer in coach since there's no incremental labor, but I know there are a lot of other costs involved in catering/provisioning beyond just the cost of the can of beer (many on here like to observe that because they can buy something at Costco for $x it costs the airline even less to provision to the airplane). The volume of paid alcohol may just be very low - just one person's observation but when I'm sitting in the back I never see many people paying for alcohol.

britNY

Flew down from LGA to AUA via MIA. Seems others observations were spot on with service being all over the place. On the first leg the FA offered drinks several times and the now ubiquitous cheese box. Not bad considering. On the second leg the FA handed out the boxes as we were being pushed back (we had to tuck them under our arms) and offered no drinks at all after take off (I could see from 1B where I was seated that she had set up her iPad in the galley and didn’t want to be disturbed). I soon changed that and ordered some red wine (non-descript variety).

Going back via CLT which is a longer first leg. Hope the service is better on a 4 hour plus flight!
second leg is shorter at 1.5 hours to JFK. Wonder what we can expect on that!

CLT

It only became the 3.5 window up until the HP merger. Up until 2004/2005 or so, US did provide meals on PHL/PIT-Florida/Midwest, CLT-Northeast, etc. They also tried giving away free BOB to F on these routes as well which didn't work out.

I concur about the amount of people buying booze in the back. I've said this before, but out of all the US3 carriers, I have noticed that AA FA's (particularly L-US IMO) seem to be the most willing to give out free drinks to the masses, especially in the event of delays where I have seen them hand out bottles of wine and liquor minis like candy.