I was reading another web site on airline food. It gave a list of menus from many different airlines and their lounges. Airlinemeals.net

They also gave info on CREW meals, which to my surprise, were not the meals the passengers eat. They were not as nice as passenger meals.

Now, I have been on many flights and have OFTEN seen FA's bringing back trays from the first and business class sections for themselves to eat. They also often bring back snacks from first and business classes to eat.

What are the FA's and pilots supposed to eat during flights? Do they eat crew meals or passenger meals?

yes that's when they tell the passengers that "only one per passenger please" so that they can hoard it for themselves, or "we ran out of it".

as djjaguar64 pretty much summed it up!!!!

From my limited experience, the cockpit crew (i.e., Captain, First Officer, etc.) get J class meals (if there's J class on that flight). The cabin crew get Y class meals or a trimmed down version of that (seriously, who would want to eat a bread roll that is as hard as a rock). Even if the cabin crew is serving F and J, they still get an economy meal.

Most of the time, it's not easy to see what they eat, and I'm sure that's done by design. Also, there's often some form of a gallery between the first row and seats and the door to the cockpit, so it's not easy to see what they actually have.

Crew meals are different from passenger meals and are generally specified in the contract. We took some CO pilots sailing and got everyone Subway sandwiches ... little did we know at the time that their domestic crew meals were ... Subway sandwiches. I'm pretty sure they've since changed.

That said, if extra meals from F and C are available, they'll often get those. Sometimes the extra F sundae on UA gets split among those in the cockpit.

What's kind of funny is that many FAs don't seem to know that pilots can hear their conversations over the phone system (intercom?) on the plane. The FAs will frequently go into negotiations, We have three extra chickens from F and a pasta from C, which would you like? Often the FAs take their pick and then bring what's left to the cockpit, telling the pilots that's all that was left, not knowing the pilots heard the whole exchange. Granted this is not to say every FA does this, but it's a frequent happening on some carriers. Pilots I know find it more amusing than anything, afterall they're in a little better position to buy meals than are FAs, and they certainly aren't guaranteed passenger meals.

It varies entirely by airline and union contract. Some airlines provide free meals for crew, some payroll-deduct for crew meals, some require crew to eat passenger meals and some mandate that crew pre-order specific meals.

I know of at least one security conscious foreign airline that ensures crew meals are obtained from two seperate caterers to prevent the possibility of contaminated or tampered food from a single source affecting the flight's safety. Others mandate that crew must only consume meals from approved sources in the hours immediately prior to or during a flight to prevent incapacitation.

Most American carriers have now shifted towards an "extra passenger meal" policy for crew (or a payroll deduct charge for special crew meals) with the only safeguard that captain and co-pilot specify different menu options.

I just spoke to a FA on Egypt Air. He said the crew does have "crew meals." I asked if they were good and he said yes. He then said they are allowed to eat passenger meals if they want.

I would imagine that the union contrcts would have a lot of play in this. For the airline, upgrading to a C meal for the cockpit crew costs, what, $2 per flight per meal?