PNGento

Huh?

PPM

I've traveled so much that perhaps I missed some sort of announcement, but I received a call yesterday informing me that my meal choice (Hindu) was not going to be available for a flight (ORD-SFO) on October 3rd. Today, I called and got someone who was very pleasant at the 1K number, and asked if the Vegan meal was available. She said "yes" and tried to put it into the system, and it didn't accept it. Then, she tried Asian vegetarian--and the system didn't accept it. Finally, she went back through the recent "updates" she had received about special meals, and said that United was no longer offering any special meals on domestic flights for "premium passengers". Her words to me were "What about the people who need special meals, like diabetics, low fat, Kosher, etc.?)" Did I miss an announcement, or was this just silently introduced. The Hindu meal was the one meal that was fairly consistently tasty. I am vegetarian--does this mean that United will always have a vegetarian entree--or that the future is to choose a snack box that is complimentary for First Class passengers? What do other airlines do? Does American offer special meals?

tom911

You can read AA's meal policy HERE. On domestic flights they only offer special meals in first or business transcons.

UA's policy is online HERE and here's what it says on domestic:

3Cforme

AA limits domestic special meals to trans-cons First/Business class.

http://www.aa.com/i18n/travelInforma...ecialMeals.jsp

DL permits special meal orders for any flight with scheduled meal service.

http://www.delta.com/traveling_check....../dining.jsp

WineCountryUA

while the thread title is a little misleading, long discussion on subject http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...er-10-1-a.html

mherdeg

Yes, you missed the announcement. This harmonizes with CO policies.

uastarflyer

You mean it reduces it down to CO's terrible policies. Let's not do their PR for them.

Very lousy reduction in benefits

nova08

Agreed, UDU is but a foot note in the degradation of service.

Over the past 10 years we have become a cost conscious society and thus many people either have not purchased full fare F or just fly whatever airline is the cheapest. Thus the airlines slashed service (in F and Y) since the consumer wasn't focusing on it. They even used the argument that the consumer wanted the fare broken down so they could decide what they wanted to pay for (bags, meals, ife). Although all that likely resulted in was the same fare but more fees.

If UA were to drastically improve its domestic F product but then charge $2,500+ roundtrip I am not so sure you will have many more takers than they already have.

Additionally I doubt the UDU percentage for 1P's and lower is anything above 50% and probably much lower for 2P's, which means that all UDU does is fill F with a bunch of 1K's

pcharles

It is a real bummer for me, I am VEGAN. Traveling makes meeting my meal requirements very, very challenging. My diet is by choice, but for those who have food allergies, the new meal policies is not a help in any way.

I guess it will mean I will have to drink more to make up for the loss.

SeattleFlyerGuy

Huh. I almost always request a special meal, but I've never had one when I've been upgraded by UDU....

PPM

Today I flew from ORD-SFO, which was my first flight after the "no special meals" went into effect. The flight attendant offered chicken salad or a pastrami sandwich, and I replied that i am vegetarian, and explained that I had received a telephone call Saturday to inform me that my Hindu meal would not be available for this flight. When I called the 1K number, after much searching, the agent found a policy that said no special meals would be boarded.
The flight attendant today had not heard about the new policy, and said "Well, that would explain why the co-pilot's Hindu meal is not boarded". This started a general chat on the part of the flight attendants in first class, and they expressed a generalized frustration with what they referred to as Continental "take over", not a merger. They said that the "no special meals" was Continental, and they were embarrassed as flight attendants to be put on the front line with having to explain this to customers. Then, the flight attendant showed my seat mate and me the new "coffee" that has replaced the Starbucks (again, a cost-cutting mechanism). The flight attendant pointed out that nowhere on the package did it say "coffee" and that customers had complained that it was not 100% coffee--that it had a peculiar taste and smell. In fact, she advised us not to drink it because she had no idea what was actually in it. She said that the flight attendant and pilot procedures were changed to be in line with Continental. From boarding with the gate agent screeching "I'm going to start calling the stand-bys, and you get one chance. If you don't approach the podium, I move on to the next person"--this was the way the gate agent treated passengers who had been inconvenienced with cancelled flights and were standing by. I just keep thinking, Can it get worse? The flight attendants in First Class encouraged us to write the 1K desk, and indicated that only that would help. I told them I emailed about once a month, and kept getting incoherent responses--and that it was obvious that the airline didn't care about passenger complaints either. And--no laptop power in First Class on this Ghetto-bird 757 for 4 hours in the air. There has to be a market for a decent First Class product.

mahasamatman

And even before this new policy, we had three consecutive refusals to get a comped snack box in F.

maize&blue

received a call about my Hindu meal tomorrow morning... when I asked what vegetarians are supposed to do now, I received the verbal equivalent of a shrug.... not pleased at all.

karenkay

as a former vegetarian, i'm guessing that co/ua is hoping that there just aren't enough people who are vegetarian/vegan for this to make a big splash...and they're probably right.

same goes for folks who require gluten free or low sodium...i'm guessing the answer will be 'well, you'll just have to pick up something in the terminal.'

weezl

Strange, if this change in special meal policy harmonizes with CO, how is it that I just requested a special meal on a CO non-transcon and the agent was able to enter it in?