PushingTin

I'm seeing a lot of UX flights that used to be 5pm moved back to post 8pm flights. I assume my 8:03pm ATL-DEN flight in a 700 won' t have a meal?

EWR764

FWIW, I think there have been some tweaks to the protocol since the rollout of the new service in February.

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...st/dining.aspx

The eastbound redeyes are a substantial number, no disagreement there... but there is also no doubt that the take rate on redeye flights is generally quite low, so there is often a lot of waste.

Correct, but just the eastbound redeyes, as discussed. All other flights have meals.

The midday flights you reference... DC area to DEN, for example, all are presently coded as meal flights.

After 9pm to receive the basket. Former cold plate flights before 9pm now have a hot service ("snack", which is a midcon lunch/dinner).

ANC-IAH/ORD/SFO/EWR; FAI-ORD are redeyes, but meal flights. Really, it's only the ANC-DEN that is snack basket only.

True, but I don't think they number in the "hundreds".

transportprof

I flew LAX-YVR on April 30, and the full meal service was in effect in a CRJ-700. Had breakfast, which included Rasin Bran (off brand) cereal, banana, fruit plate, milk, yoghurt and an Otis Spunkmeyer 'wild' blueberry muffin.

Food quality was better than similar cold cereal breakfast option on MEL-LAX BF flight - fruit and cereal were fresher.

There was even a hot towel service before breakfast, so they must be able to heat something in the CR7 galley. ^

Definitely a step in the right direction from the "AM Snack Box".

spin88

They have hot water (pulled off the coffee maker) for tea. They pour that hot water over the towels. UA RJs don't have ovens (unless the new ERJ-175s do, and I don't think they do).

JVPhoto

It never occurred to me (not that I actively gave it any thought) how they did that but then I saw the same thing in an LX pr video. @:-)

PushingTin

DEN-ATL 507 on Wed for lunch looked like a ham sandwhich or salad with chicken with tortilla soup.

I find with airline food that the salad is the way to go. Sandwhichs and 'meat' dishes disappoint.

The salad with chicken was excellent. The chicken may have been one of the best chicken breasts I've had. Juicy, generously sized and tastey with the salad dressing. Tortilla soup was excellent.

Choc chip cookie for desert was warm and a bit soggy, but excellent once you get a glass of milk to dunk it in.

15cats

I generally avoid salads and lettuce when abroad so usually on incoming flights I tend to choose the cooked meals. Had some bad experience with international salads

lensman

Had a good lunch LAS-EWR - it was some cross between Tandoori Chicken and Chicken Tikka Masala - it was a bit wet for straight Tandoori and had more of a paste on it vs. a sauce so it wasn't Tikka Masala. Also came with a Paneer side dish that may have been the Tikka Masala sauce but I don't think so because it had Paneer in it. Hmm.

At any rate it was well-spiced and the best domestic F meal I've had in years.

Motorskills

I'm loving the meals on the tinyjets.

endrond

I had some pretty good beef short ribs SFO-BOS (F) last Thursday. ^

I was pretty astonished, given that I've long been in the habit of buying food in the terminal rather than counting on UA meals.

PushingTin

The more I look at this, the more I think the meals are why we are seeing a shift in RJ flights. RJs flights moved later to just past 8pm on flights from out stations to hubs. They don't want to cater the meals from the hubs if at all possible, so just move the flight later.

I was on an RJ from ATL-DEN last week and you can tell they manipulated the time because there was a longer than usual turn around time- they even started boarding 10 minutes early since I think they were used to rapid turns.

I've really enjoyed the meals I have had on mainlines, but they have moved all my usual RJs to outside meal times. I'd rather they just skipped the meal obligation on my monthly CVG-DEN flight and move it from 8:teen PM back to 5pm or so. Daddy wants to get home on Friday and eat with the family. Now UA has me working later, eating airport food and shortening my weekend.

From an ops side, I know they don't want to cater from non-hubs a few meals for an RJ, but they now have these later RJ flights getting in (scheduled) at past 9pm, with tight connections, or no connections onward. That has to reduce the utility of the system?

jjmoore

I am fairly certain that this flight will qualify for the upgraded meal service, which was really nice on a similar length flight a couple weeks ago.

I stand corrected... post-8pm may be snack basket (not even the snack boxes pre-change).....

channa

Ahh yes, but catering cost is easy to measure. Schedule impact on the network is much more difficult.

From a primitive, CO-style accounting methodology, the bird in the hand (meal cost savings) is the winner. Besides, schedule impacts revenue, not cost, and cost control has typically been CO management's focus.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone got a bonus for figuring that one out, even though there's a net revenue hit to the company.

PushingTin

It was a snack box...

muckamuck

I'm flying in First Class from SFO-CLE UA 362 on May 26.
The UA reservations page says: Meal: Refreshments No Special Meal Offered.
Is there really no meal service on this nearly 5 hour flight?