Apr 18, 2020, 1:31 pm
Last edit by: WineCountryUA
This is an archive thread, the active thread is https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...ll-cabins.html
Updated posting July 2020 - Ice, tea and coffee returns and some small food enhancements.
orignal posting
crew meals, covered by contract, appear minimally changed
Updated posting July 2020 - Ice, tea and coffee returns and some small food enhancements.
Safety updates to inflight dining
Your safety and the safety of our employees is our highest priority. To try and further limit potential exposure to coronavirus (COVID-19) on board, we’re temporarily adjusting our inflight service as of March 29 and will be moving to primarily pre-packaged foods and sealed beverages. Preorder meals and food for purchase will not be available. We’re also unable to offer special meals except for Kosher meals on flights to and from Tel Aviv.
Beverage changes for all flights
We will be offering sealed beverages on all flights. If you’re on a flight under 1 hour, you’ll receive beverages on request. We’ll also offer coffee and tea on domestic flights departing before 9:45 a.m. and on all international and premium transcontinental flights. Non-alcoholic beverages are complimentary, and alcoholic beverages are complimentary in premium cabins. Wine and beer are also complimentary in United Economy® on long-haul international flights.
Food changes for domestic flights
We won't have snacks available in United Economy for flights under 2 hours and 20 minutes or in United First® for flights under 1 hour. As always, you're welcome to bring snacks on board. For flights between 1 hour and 2 hours and 20 minutes in United First, you'll receive an "all-in-one" snack bag with a wrapped sanitizer wipe, 8.5-ounce bottled water and two snacks.
For flights 2 hours and 20 minutes or longer, you'll receive an "all-in-one" snack bag with a wrapped sanitizer wipe, 8.5-ounce bottled water and two snacks in United Economy. In the premium cabin, you'll be offered a snack box.
Food changes for premium transcontinental flights
If you're flying in United Economy or Economy Plus®, you'll receive an "all-in-one" snack bag with a wrapped sanitizer wipe, 8.5-ounce bottled water and two snacks. Customers in the premium cabin will receive their meal with their entrée choice covered and will be offered a packaged snack for pre-arrival.
Food changes for international flights
In United Economy®, you’ll receive an entrée, a snack and packaged dessert, as well as pre-packed mid-flight and pre-arrival items on select flights. Everything is served packaged or covered for you to unwrap.
In United Premium Plus® and United Polaris® business class, your entrée, dessert and bread will be served together. Everything is served packaged or covered for you to unwrap. You’ll receive a pre-packaged snack for midflight and a fresh packaged meal for pre-arrival on select flights.
Your safety and the safety of our employees is our highest priority. To try and further limit potential exposure to coronavirus (COVID-19) on board, we’re temporarily adjusting our inflight service as of March 29 and will be moving to primarily pre-packaged foods and sealed beverages. Preorder meals and food for purchase will not be available. We’re also unable to offer special meals except for Kosher meals on flights to and from Tel Aviv.
Beverage changes for all flights
We will be offering sealed beverages on all flights. If you’re on a flight under 1 hour, you’ll receive beverages on request. We’ll also offer coffee and tea on domestic flights departing before 9:45 a.m. and on all international and premium transcontinental flights. Non-alcoholic beverages are complimentary, and alcoholic beverages are complimentary in premium cabins. Wine and beer are also complimentary in United Economy® on long-haul international flights.
Food changes for domestic flights
We won't have snacks available in United Economy for flights under 2 hours and 20 minutes or in United First® for flights under 1 hour. As always, you're welcome to bring snacks on board. For flights between 1 hour and 2 hours and 20 minutes in United First, you'll receive an "all-in-one" snack bag with a wrapped sanitizer wipe, 8.5-ounce bottled water and two snacks.
For flights 2 hours and 20 minutes or longer, you'll receive an "all-in-one" snack bag with a wrapped sanitizer wipe, 8.5-ounce bottled water and two snacks in United Economy. In the premium cabin, you'll be offered a snack box.
Food changes for premium transcontinental flights
If you're flying in United Economy or Economy Plus®, you'll receive an "all-in-one" snack bag with a wrapped sanitizer wipe, 8.5-ounce bottled water and two snacks. Customers in the premium cabin will receive their meal with their entrée choice covered and will be offered a packaged snack for pre-arrival.
Food changes for international flights
In United Economy®, you’ll receive an entrée, a snack and packaged dessert, as well as pre-packed mid-flight and pre-arrival items on select flights. Everything is served packaged or covered for you to unwrap.
In United Premium Plus® and United Polaris® business class, your entrée, dessert and bread will be served together. Everything is served packaged or covered for you to unwrap. You’ll receive a pre-packaged snack for midflight and a fresh packaged meal for pre-arrival on select flights.
Safety updates to inflight dining
Your safety and the safety of our employees is our highest priority. To try and further limit potential exposure to coronavirus (COVID-19) on board, we’re temporarily adjusting our inflight service as of March 29 and will be moving to primarily pre-packaged foods and sealed beverages. Preorder meals and food for purchase will not be available. We’re also unable to offer special meals except for Kosher meals on flights to and from Tel Aviv.
Beverage changes for all flights
We will only offer sealed beverages and we will no longer offer ice, coffee and tea service, and poured alcohol. Instead of pouring you water from a large bottle, we’ll provide sealed individual water bottles. In premium cabins, we will offer beer and individual wines. Flights under 2 hours and 20 minutes will only have beverages on request.
Food changes for domestic flights
For flights under 2 hours and 20 minutes, we will not offer a snack service in any cabin. As always, you’re welcome to bring snacks on board.
For flights over 2 hours and 20 minutes, you will receive your choice of pretzels, a stroopwafel or cookies in United Economy®. In the premium cabin, you’ll be offered a snackbox.
Food changes for premium transcontinental flights
If you’re flying in United Economy or Economy Plus®, you’ll be offered a snack choice. Customers in the premium cabin will receive their packaged meal with their entrée choice covered and will be offered a packaged snack for pre-arrival.
Food changes for international flights
In United Economy®, you’ll receive an entrée, a snack and packaged dessert, as well as pre-packed mid-flight and pre-arrival items on select flights. Everything is served packaged or covered for you to unwrap.
In United Premium Plus® and United Polaris® business class, your entrée, dessert and bread will be served together. Everything is served packaged or covered for you to unwrap. You’ll receive a pre-packaged snack for midflight and a fresh packaged meal for pre-arrival.
Your safety and the safety of our employees is our highest priority. To try and further limit potential exposure to coronavirus (COVID-19) on board, we’re temporarily adjusting our inflight service as of March 29 and will be moving to primarily pre-packaged foods and sealed beverages. Preorder meals and food for purchase will not be available. We’re also unable to offer special meals except for Kosher meals on flights to and from Tel Aviv.
Beverage changes for all flights
We will only offer sealed beverages and we will no longer offer ice, coffee and tea service, and poured alcohol. Instead of pouring you water from a large bottle, we’ll provide sealed individual water bottles. In premium cabins, we will offer beer and individual wines. Flights under 2 hours and 20 minutes will only have beverages on request.
Food changes for domestic flights
For flights under 2 hours and 20 minutes, we will not offer a snack service in any cabin. As always, you’re welcome to bring snacks on board.
For flights over 2 hours and 20 minutes, you will receive your choice of pretzels, a stroopwafel or cookies in United Economy®. In the premium cabin, you’ll be offered a snackbox.
Food changes for premium transcontinental flights
If you’re flying in United Economy or Economy Plus®, you’ll be offered a snack choice. Customers in the premium cabin will receive their packaged meal with their entrée choice covered and will be offered a packaged snack for pre-arrival.
Food changes for international flights
In United Economy®, you’ll receive an entrée, a snack and packaged dessert, as well as pre-packed mid-flight and pre-arrival items on select flights. Everything is served packaged or covered for you to unwrap.
In United Premium Plus® and United Polaris® business class, your entrée, dessert and bread will be served together. Everything is served packaged or covered for you to unwrap. You’ll receive a pre-packaged snack for midflight and a fresh packaged meal for pre-arrival.
crew meals, covered by contract, appear minimally changed
COVID Era UA inflight service changes {Archive}
Aug 7, 2020, 12:26 pm
#676
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Aug 7, 2020, 1:38 pm
#677
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Aug 7, 2020, 4:30 pm
#678
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Was stuck in Y DEN-PHX and back last week. Both afternoon/evening flights. No alcohol is available for purchase. A drink service is offered in the air. I asked for, and received coffee on the evening DEN-PHX flight. I asked for coffee, and was told "no hot drinks after the morning" on the afternoon PHX-DEN flight, because clearly the Coronavirus only lives in hot drinks in the afternoons, not in the mornings.
That said, my experience is mixed outside of the official line, which is coffee on flights departing at 9:45am or earlier only. As expected, was told no coffee on a noon CVG-ORD in F. But did receive a cup on a ~2:00pm departure ORD-SFO. Given current financials, I could buy they don’t want to bother on short flights that aren’t at peak coffee drinking times, or on UAX flights, or flights under, say, 90 minutes. But the only public condition seems to be based on which side of the day were on of 9:45. Anecdotally, not really true, so can’t they just say what guidelines they are using, and stick to it?
Aug 7, 2020, 6:34 pm
#679
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 2,531
If United can get 80% of the economic goodie of offering hot drinks (most people drink coffee in the morning, are unlikely to book away from evening flights due to no hot drinks) and eliminate 66% of the risk of spreading covid through that channel (even if the risk is small to begin with), maybe that's where they've settled.
Similarly, wearing your seat belt 95% of the time is better than wearing it 0% of the time, but someone on flyertalk will surely say "the airline policy of keeping your belt buckled while seated is stupid because obviously turbulence is less likely when you are using the loo!".
Aug 7, 2020, 6:45 pm
#680
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Was stuck in Y DEN-PHX and back last week. Both afternoon/evening flights. No alcohol is available for purchase. A drink service is offered in the air. I asked for, and received coffee on the evening DEN-PHX flight. I asked for coffee, and was told "no hot drinks after the morning" on the afternoon PHX-DEN flight, because clearly the Coronavirus only lives in hot drinks in the afternoons, not in the mornings.
Did they use a beverage cart, of if the load is light, come through asking for orders?
Aug 7, 2020, 8:25 pm
#681
Join Date: May 2010
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Full beverage service with cart and ice on both mainline and express carriers. The cart did seem to have limited options compared to ‘normal’ times, but I didn’t hear anybody not receive what they asked for.
Last edited by UVU Wolverine; Aug 7, 2020 at 11:39 pm
Aug 7, 2020, 11:30 pm
#682
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Join Date: Oct 1999
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With UA and most airlines craving for cash, one would expect that sales of alcoholic beverages onboard would be a much-needed revenue source .... not sure what's missing ??
Aug 8, 2020, 12:05 am
#683
Join Date: Sep 2009
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The issue probably is the handing of credit cards back and forth between passengers and flight attendants. Lots of contact and potential avenue for spread.
Aug 8, 2020, 12:19 am
#684
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Which could easily be mitigated by moving inflight purchases to the UA app, where you would complete your purchase of a specific item or category of item, then present a barcode on your phone to be scanned by the FA - true "contact-less" payments. Of course this assumes that UA's IT department knows what it's doing, which history tells us, is not likely.
Aug 8, 2020, 8:12 am
#685
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Which could easily be mitigated by moving inflight purchases to the UA app, where you would complete your purchase of a specific item or category of item, then present a barcode on your phone to be scanned by the FA - true "contact-less" payments. Of course this assumes that UA's IT department knows what it's doing, which history tells us, is not likely.
Probably more feasable, to develop a system for pre-purchase (AC had this, or at least used to), but again, there’s a lot of logistics involved to make sure they can supply what’s been ore-ordered, and appears UA has barely even tried to handle pre-selected F meals, and that’s without a payment involved.
Aug 8, 2020, 8:15 am
#686
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Which could easily be mitigated by moving inflight purchases to the UA app, where you would complete your purchase of a specific item or category of item, then present a barcode on your phone to be scanned by the FA - true "contact-less" payments. Of course this assumes that UA's IT department knows what it's doing, which history tells us, is not likely.
Aug 8, 2020, 2:36 pm
#687
Join Date: Apr 2015
Programs: United Global Services, Amtrak Select Executive
Posts: 4,092
It's all about mitigating, not eliminating risk. If they serve coffee on 1/3 their flights, then they've reduced by 2/3 the chance of spreading the disease by serving coffee.
If United can get 80% of the economic goodie of offering hot drinks (most people drink coffee in the morning, are unlikely to book away from evening flights due to no hot drinks) and eliminate 66% of the risk of spreading covid through that channel (even if the risk is small to begin with), maybe that's where they've settled.
Similarly, wearing your seat belt 95% of the time is better than wearing it 0% of the time, but someone on flyertalk will surely say "the airline policy of keeping your belt buckled while seated is stupid because obviously turbulence is less likely when you are using the loo!".
If United can get 80% of the economic goodie of offering hot drinks (most people drink coffee in the morning, are unlikely to book away from evening flights due to no hot drinks) and eliminate 66% of the risk of spreading covid through that channel (even if the risk is small to begin with), maybe that's where they've settled.
Similarly, wearing your seat belt 95% of the time is better than wearing it 0% of the time, but someone on flyertalk will surely say "the airline policy of keeping your belt buckled while seated is stupid because obviously turbulence is less likely when you are using the loo!".
Aug 8, 2020, 3:11 pm
#688
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Another option is to pre-pay for drinks and food online, print out the vouchers that have an extended expiry date in case of flight issues, then exchange the printed voucher for an inflight meal - or program the check-in kiosks to print the vouchers - or attach the meal/drink prepaid order to the PNR so it it's available to the crew to departure.
In short, there are probably a dozen different options to simplify meal and beverage sales - but United always chooses the more simple "no we're not doing that" answer.
Aug 8, 2020, 3:13 pm
#689
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Aug 8, 2020, 3:21 pm
#690
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As for prepaying in advance - it can be done but do people really know in advance whether they will want alcohol at a later time in the day? The marketing would look odd online - a menu of alcoholic beverages with encouragement to prepay. And would they offer sales, i.e., 20% on two drinks? Messy.