transportprof

I think the more you fly United, the more you will be tempted to drink the free wine and beer.

briank1973

Unless I read the statement by UA_Insider incorrectly, this does reduce the food offerings on longhaul flights such as MEL/SYD - LAX. There will be the lunch/dinner and breakfast meals, but no longer a snack midway through the flight. Granted, that snack wasn't great, but it came about 6 hours after the dinner service and was edible.

Now, you will have a lunch/dinner service about an hour after takeoff, and about 11-13 hours later, you get breakfast. This means that unless you bring food onboard with you, you'll have to buy a snack box if you get hungry in that time frame.

Most people won't know this upon coming onboard, and then UA will sell a lot of their $8 or so boxes. In other words, the cost they add to make the meals better will be gained back through snack boxes. Furthermore, with free alcohol, they can just raise the ticket prices a bit on everyone to cover it.

username

That is what I wonder too. Last time I did Y (LAX-NRT), the mid-flight was a small sandwich and ice cream. It was filling. With this (and I really don't see the meals get significantly bigger or better), I will have to bring something or steal something from the lounge

I think someone should invent a meal cart shaped vending machine and UA can just have self-service snack vending mid-flight

ORDnHKG

Unless I can see photos of what the "3 course Y meal" look like, I will still give my TPAC business to NH. NH's 77W is 34" of legroom anyway, so I am just getting the same legroom like UA E+ anyway.

kluau88

That looks pretty impressive.

ozziegumby

More impressive is that the packaged brownie looks to be RIP. Never thought i'd see the day when it was discontinued.

username

People say Americans are fat and American food portions are huge. UA is trying hard to reverse that trend and stereotype

NDN

Bringing your own meal on a 20-hour flight to India from USA is not really an option. The meal will spoil.

NDN

Diabetic meal is NOT low carb. It is meant for somebody on insulin and gives predictable carb processing for proper insulin dosage. Those of us not on any insulin cannot eat the so-called diabetic meal.

phkc070408

I see this as getting closer to the J meal service, with the only difference being that the cheese and crackers ARE the appetizer and it's served in fewer courses. You have your cheese and crackers, your salad and bread, main course, and desert. All you're really missing is the nut pieces and the hot appetizer.

Oh, and just for the record, institutional meat loaf sounds extremely scary.

lhrsfo

Agreed on both counts. Except that:
- I've only ever received a cold appetizer in J
- I'm not sure why they've effectively reversed the order of the meal in Y - I would normally eat salad after (or at least with a main course) and cheese after whereas, with exception of the dessert, UA is doing it backwards; and
- Institutional meat loaf doesn't sound scary, it sounds poisonous!

ZZYZXROAD

Good point. Is there a low carb option now or previously?

NDN

No, virtually nobody offers a low-carb option. This medically necessary dietary restriction is very hard to manage. I haven't had to take an international flight yet since I have been restricted to low carb. I wonder though whether the airline has some legal obligation to provide some food that you can eat for long-haul flights. I can handle my own on the regular east-west-coast flights I take, but when I have to go to eastern Europe or Asia, I have no idea what I will do!

BearX220

For the purpose of specifying onboard service / amenity levels, all intercontinental routes are classified long-haul. They feed you the same on SFO-FRA as on EWR-DUB, more or less. They don't feed you at all on BOS-SFO even though gate-to-gate time rivals that of a shorter TATL. (I have endured a DL JFK-SEA with a headwind that began with a near-three-hour gate delay for mech; we were aboard that 738 nearly ten hours IIRC; hellish. No free/edible food, either.)

AFAIK as i know there is no formal definition of "long-haul" with a mileage threshold attached; it's all about sub-markets and the associated norms.

fropones

This should be good