Took an ~11:30am IAH-ATL on Friday and was told by a GA that there was "snack service" on the flight. I took that to mean that there was that sandwich in coach and a "cold plate" in F. However, I arrived in ATL hungry with only drink service.

On the return flight (ATL-IAH) on Sunday around 7:30pm, I ate stale pasteries and broken crackers at the Prseidents Club before leaving since I didn't think there'd be a meal service on a flight after 7pm. However, I was surprised to be served white wine in a little plastic cup while in the air. I asked the FA if they had wine glasses and was told, "we just have plastic on this flight."

Did I just have bad luck last weekend, or are there occasional cut-backs on the shorter-haul flights in F these days?

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daniel baker -- [email protected]

My guess is that it is random. I do a EWR-CLT run fairly often and (obviously not including the Embraer Jets),& have been served only coffee/drinks or snack plates/ or a fruit plate (in the am). I don't think the plastic was any indication of cutbacks, more likely they didn't get the glasses on.

Has anyone experienced this... on my flights this past weekend, in FC, asked for another pkg of nuts and they said that they are only loading enough for each PAX to have one! Thought this was a bit wierd until I saw the load tray with only 14 pkgs of nuts on it.

So are these shortcoming sporadic or being implemented systemwide? This is the questionl. My suremise is yes, as I'm sure CO is looking to cut somewhere. But don't have consistent short haul experience to confirm.

cigarman posted an apparent cutback in service not too long ago; perhaps (since he flys a lot) he may be able to cofirm further if he's still doing similar routes.

JL2

It's a cutback. Still no nuts to MSY (from IAH) and noticed hot towels seem to not appear on non meal flights anymore. Definetly one pack of nuts per person.

Well, I'm going SEA-IAH-MCO in a few hours, and then MCO-IAH-SEA a day later. Supposed to be breakfast on the first segment, snack on the second, snack on the third, dinner on the fourth.

I'll be happy to report here what happens to me. I'm familiar enough with these routes and times to know what to expect from past experience.

I just noticed something. At http://www.continental.com/dash/buil...p?tis_01_04_04 CO lists their US meal services. I know that on the two instances where I flew in coach last year on a flight of over 3 1/2 hours during breakfast hours, I had a hot breakfast. Now it's listed as cold (which I'm betting is cereal, banana, muffin). In fact, there is no listing for a hot breakfast on any domestic flight.

Further, I note in looking at the timetable that the "dinner" IAH-SEA flights that I have taken many times have been downgraded to snack. This is, IIRC, the first time these flights have been snack flights since Gordon took over. In fact, for those unfortunate souls in coach, there is no longer any such thing as a "meal" flight from IAH.

Actually, I'm looking at the schedule in greater detail. In coach, there are no "meals" unless it's a transcon flight. That means only five routes: EWR-SEA, EWR-PDX, EWR-SFO, EWR-LAX, or EWR-SAN.

Five routes. Is the pizza getting too cheap to buy?

[This message has been edited by mweiss (edited 06-27-2001).]

According to that guideline, I should have received Lunch/Snack on my IAH-ATL flight and a Snack on my ATL-IAH flight.

It may sound just *****y and picky to complain about no snack or meal on a flight, but I literally do not eat for an extended period of time if they don't give anything to me.

On Friday, catching a noon flight means leaving at least by 11. After a full morning with an early breakfast, that leaves me arriving at ATL eleven hours after my last meal. I had a two-hour 6pm shuttle that I had -5 minutes to catch since my flight arrived so late. It'd sure make a lot of sense to have served a meal, at least in F.

On Sunday, I began my trip to the gate (drive to ATL, return car, check-in, ~15min trip through the airport, etc) around 4:30pm and wasn't able to eat dinner until 11:30pm after driving from AUS.

That kind of travel schedule is just typical, if not more hectic. When are passengers expected to eat? No wonder air rage is a problem; I'm not the only one that's less tolerant on an empty stomach.

Honestly, hot towel service and an extra bag of peanuts isn't going to change me four hours after the flight, but keeping my schedule set and me comfortable by having a meal on a flight is incredibly valuable.

Even Gordon explains the importance of meal service (in reference to Continental Lite) in his From Worst To First, so I'd think that we wouldn't be dealing with this.

I'll tell you what makes that especially troublesome. If CO's website promises a particular level of service, I as a customer make my decisions based upon that promise. That means I may choose not to purchase food at the airport before getting on the flight because I was told I would be fed.

One of the reasons I have been so pleased with CO over the past seven years has been the quality of service I have received. My pleasure has diminished steadily over the past two years. Starting last year, for the first time, I have begun to get a wandering eye. This in and of itself makes now a bad time to start treating me worse.

But let's look at the bigger picture. If I'm getting a wandering eye, I doubt I'm alone. I'm a pretty forgiving customer. And by now I'm sure it's clear that the economy has taken a turn for the worse. One would think that a business would thus choose to try to lure customers to their product, rather than cheapening the pizza. Gordon, have you forgotten how you got where you are?

I agree. I have noticed decreases in the meal services in the last 6 months compared to a year and a half ago, when I seriously started flying on CO.

My wandering eyes are seriously restrained, when it comes to finding an alternative. They don't see any out of SAN. But I keep looking at the foreign carriers as an alternative for International flights. Unfortunately, I Don't have any miles for upgrades with the foreign flag flyers and I can't fly in coach. It is too painful.

Well, here I am in MCO. Got the usual egg dish SEA-IAH, though it was done rather differently...they were going for a "southwestern" sort of thing, and it had some sort of "au-gratin" style potatoes with it. Pretty good, but different. I got a rather odd mix of stuff in a "salad" (6 shrimp with cocktail sauce; a slice each of tomato, cucumber, and zucchini; one lettuce leaf; and a marinated chicken breast tenderloin).

One thing I noticed is that they don't come by and offer additional bread like they have on transcons. But it seems like it's pretty much how I remember it.

And the 767 BF cabin rocks! I flew on one IAH-MCO. Just like the 777 cabin except a tad smaller.

The 767 BF cabin is great!!

I took EWR-LAX a few weeks ago and had one of the best transco meals I have ever had (even counting my numerous trips LAX-HNL in BF).

choice of hot or cold breakfast, a seemingly overflowing basket of hot croissants, breads, muffins and rolls, fruit plate, yogurt, and one of those heavenly warm chocolate-chip cookies w/milk on arrival.

that, and a good 5 hour session of Blackjack on the inflight-ent system, and I was soooooo glad I took the flight even if it was at 8:15am.

I'm starting to get hungry re-reading my post!

I've noticed a few cutbacks as well. Several times in the last year I've been in coach on flights where nothing was offered other than drinks--no peanuts or pretzels. While one of these flights was DFW-IAH, the other was ATL-IAH.

Two weeks ago I flew IAH-LAX and wasn't able to get upgraded. This flight was listed on my itinerary as a snack in coach, and we got nothing but two beverage/pretzel services. The flight left IAH around 4:00, which meant that at 3 hours flying time we were landing in LA at 7:00 central time. I would have expected at least a snack service, but none was offered. Granted, this was the day after the big flood in Houston, and they were still working overtime to restore normal operations. I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not, but I was very suprised we weren't offered more.

Last week I flew SFO-IAH in F and the service overall was very good, although the rolls weren't as good as they usually are and were not warmed, and they never offered seconds. Other than that, the lunch service was excellent. Lunch in coach was some type of hot sandwich, as I saw them being loaded.

There was an article in the WSJ last year that mentioned that CO factored the revenue yield of flights, on a flight by flight basis, when planning food service.

Two flights of the same distance and departure time, or even the same flight on different days could have very different service depending on the mix of high/low fares paid by the passengers.

With the reported drop in business travel of over 10% the menu could be taking a hit.

There aren't many areas where they can cut expenses, the have to make the payments on the planes, they can't change the fuel from hi-test to regular, the pilots want more, not less.

I flew PHX-EWR and less than 2 weeks ago and was upgraded on both legs. The service was the same as I'd received on previous flights, aside from a package of nuts on the way out, as opposed to the ramekin nuts. Oh, and then there ramekin nuts on the way back were COLD, but that's another matter ...

Man, I haven't seen those ramikin nuts for a while, it's just been a cold bag, oh well.....