Alright, alright; LOL! Fair enough. I'm just saying if an operationally pAAthetic carrier can offer this, I would think DL could too.

Given that, on my last flight DTW-SFO both myself and the diamond next to me did NOT get our special meals (VGML) and I asked the purser about them while we were still on the ground, and they were indeed listed on the paperwork, and when delta ground ops contacted gate gourmet (or whomever) to try to fix it before departure, apparently the response was "tough sugar", I can see that THIS will be a resounding success :-/

This^
IT has little to do with this - it's 1 mile on a 100 mile journey.
It's getting the catering houses the data on time and getting them to actually follow it.

The best analogy I can think of is right now the postman brings all your mail that is available every day. In the new system, you would send the mailman a different list of what mail to bring (or not) every day. It's a lot more time for the mailman now and an easy opportunity to make a mistake 365 new times a year.
Because right now, if your choice isn't available, oh well -- sh!t happens. But if you preselect your meal, and it shows on your phone what you picked, and then they don't have it -- people are going to be pissed and see this as 'broken' and 'incompetent', "I _TOLD THEM_ what I wanted!!! OMG"

If Delta were the first airline to try this I'd have more sympathy but this is old news. It's not just AA but several foreign carriers.

Delta considers itself to be the superior legacy airline, I don't see why they couldn't implement something AA has been doing for years?

This needs to happen sooner rather than later. Went without lunch the other day since the only option left was disgusting.

Sitting in 3A on a 737-900 this evening - by definition the middle of the pack. FA comes to take my meal order and says that they are down to just one "choice".

Given that she started at the front, and that my neighbor in 3B also didn't get a choice, that means that a maximum of 10 orders could have been taken before ours. Does that mean that everyone in the first 2 rows *and* 3C&D all picked option A? And that us, and everyone behind us only had option B if they wanted to eat?

Mathematically, that seems really unlikely.

Though the scenario is mathematically unlikely, I've witnessed it occur. While sitting in row three of an A319, I once overheard each of the first six passengers order short rib, leaving those in the back half with no choice but pasta.

Was it the vegetarian lasagne? I might have been on that flight with you! That sh*t was nasty! I had no idea that you could legally put that much eggplant into something and still call the dish something other than "eggplant"

And naturally, on that occasion I had a 30 minute connection at DTW where I came in on A8 and departed from A68 - so no time to explore other food options.

"Hey, it's a dinner flight - how bad could it be?" ;)

Catering logistics doesn't really even *have to* get involved. Take catering out of the picture altogether, and then what you have is the FA with a list of pre-selections. Then the remaining pax can order based on the # of remaining meals. AA requires meal selection at least 24 hours in advance, which means anyone whose upgrade clears after that can't be on the list. I suppose there could be times when the # of preorders for choice A are more than provisioned for, and they could just (1) warn people up front when they order that it's not guaranteed, or (2) program the IT so that the meal options are tied into the catering provision, so if there won't be any steaks left then you're only offered one choice on the preorder.

Frankly, I'm not sure if AA even incorporates catering logistics and adjusts meals supplied based on the preorders. Obviously that's the best way, but they could still get it done without.

Got an email about it for my SEA-ICN next week and I have no clue how to preselect based on their total lack of directions. All I see is my itinerary.

Sweet

Please call and tweet DL so we can learn from your experience. I will be doing SEA-PEK next month and would like to utilize this enhancement.

I am currently in Brazil and would be delighted to pre-select for my GRU-DTW run next week.

I have a feeling what you are seeing is the ability to pre-order the Korean meal, which has been around a while (and e-mails have been coming for a while) for this, Japanese, and Chinese meals.

Some foreign carriers such as SQ have been doing this for over a decade. In fact, business class passengers even on MH could preorder their meals from a long list of choices before MH became part of oneworld, which was more than about five years ago.

Frankly, it would be ridiculous to log on to Delta.com to make an advance meal selection and find only one option. Unless one's choice can be reasonably "guaranteed," Delta ought not even bother. Anything less would be a recipe for customer disappointment.