cesco.g

Reminds of my first p.s. flights shortly after product launch: very good food and nice wine selection, including champagne.

100% Green

When did the changes officially kick in?

cricketer

I'm in 1L on my outbound this week and 9L on the return, so looking forward (?!) to see how this plays out. Perhaps my ice cream will be in good shape on the return if I'm the 9th row of dessert service...

hirohito888

MEL-LAX
UA99
Boeing 787-9
Meal: Lunch, breakfast

This flight was just today with the pre-plated service. To be fair, I didn't find anything drastically different in terms of food and service. Service-wise, still 2 carts along the aisle doing drinks and dessert service. FA brought out the pre-plated food with tongs. Entire meal took around 2h, same as before; FAs were a bit distrated due to some celebrities on this flight (to the Grammys).

As for the food, I didn't find any noticeable difference in terms of flavor--still mediocre food. Portion-wise it's probably 10% less, and presentation is different (obviously). I was hoping they would use different plates instead of the same domestic first plates which kind of cheapens the Polaris experience.

Overall, service was fine, food was same as usual. My only complaint was that the "champagne" loaded on the flight was a cheap $6 Coastal Vines California sparkling wine.

I don't mind the pre-plating entree as much, but it's clear that some carriers do it well (like AF) and some don't (like UA and even CX).

Menu

Appetizer

Main - took photos of the fish (1st pic below) and the lamb (2nd pic below). I had the fish which was fine.


Dessert - Sundae and a pistachio mousse

Nice that they were handing out Evian water instead of cheap Dasani

Breakfast - cereal and fruits

cerealmarketer

IAH2MEL

I think they usually serve Evian on the MEL-LAX?

fumje

Generalising -- I think Dasani is ex-US, and to-US is whatever they've got a good deal with local catering on.

trust77

Maybe it's how catering is plating the meals before heated, or the plates themselves?
Delta does the same thing, actually has been and it works just fine
Well add to the mix the pissed off f/a's (due to the staffing reduction) and its a recipe for disaster as we've seen in the photos above.
Delta proves it can work though.

greenpau

Kacee

Because they don't have wine in Australia?

narvik

...or maybe the UA wine/champagne purchasing agent[s] get[s] kickbacks from the vendor, in addition to a bonus % from UA on cost savings?

EWR764

That stuff is disgusting. Embarassing that UA uses it even for PDB. I prefer the domestic prosecco.

1kBill

+1! I'll take water as the PDB over that stuff any day of the week.

flyme2

Many airlines offer sparkling wine as a PDB, none that I can recall offhand serve champagne, although most refer to the beverage as such. Kudos to AC, who perhaps are a bit more PC in referring to the PDB as prosecco. That being said, the champagne served on my EWR-HKG flight was Lanson, and like it or not, it was copiously served, to me at least.

Steve M

That's not been my experience. Despite the meal service taking extraordinarily long, they've still managed to keep the ice cream service at the old standard: rock solid upon serving so you have to wait 20 minutes for it to soften.