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United cutting first class meal service on flights less than 900 miles? (now "snack")

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United cutting first class meal service on flights less than 900 miles? (now "snack")

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Old Jul 5, 2025 | 8:34 pm
  #451  
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Originally Posted by MatthewLAX
Was it served in a box?
Here's the pre-arrival pizza I was served flying LAX-HNL. I suspect it is likely the same as what's being offered on these <900mi flights.




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Old Jul 5, 2025 | 8:41 pm
  #452  
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Originally Posted by halls120
They could, but they choose to make their meals as cheaply and as unappetizing as possible, because their cabins are still full.
Yes, but this could be priced into the ticket price, plus an extra premium for the shareholders' profit, and everyone wins. I find it regrettable that while our hard product in F for short hauls is much better than our European friends' hard product in J, our soft product is the exact opposite and lags by a lot. BA and AF are outstanding in J for short hauls. We should dominate European carriers in both hard and soft product.

What I am proposing is a different business model for UA: better meals for higher prices and higher profits. (And while we're at it, priority boarding for F before group 1, but this has been discussed elsewhere.)

Originally Posted by FlyerBeek
Here's the pre-arrival pizza I was served flying LAX-HNL. I suspect it is likely the same as what's being offered on these <900mi flights.

-FlyerBeek
How did it taste?

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Jul 5, 2025 at 9:57 pm Reason: Merge consecutive posts by same member
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Old Jul 5, 2025 | 8:46 pm
  #453  
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Originally Posted by MatthewLAX
Was it served in a box?
I wouldnt know as nothing was offered. But I see from subsequent posts that it appears so is this an on request thing for those in the know?

You know, if UA had cut meal service on these flights and committed to redirect the savings to improve the quality on other flights, I think we all would roundly applaud the plan.
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Old Jul 5, 2025 | 8:55 pm
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Originally Posted by txp
How did it taste?
I actually thought it tasted just fine (relatively speaking, for a "pizza" reheated in a cardboard box inflight). It's not going to win any awards in Naples or New York, but I've had far worse "pizza" dishes inflight over the years. (although none will be as good as the Uno pan pizzas AA used to serve for the pre-arrival snack 20 years ago)

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Old Jul 6, 2025 | 7:23 am
  #455  
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Originally Posted by FlyerBeek
I actually thought it tasted just fine (relatively speaking, for a "pizza" reheated in a cardboard box inflight). It's not going to win any awards in Naples or New York, but I've had far worse "pizza" dishes inflight over the years. (although none will be as good as the Uno pan pizzas AA used to serve for the pre-arrival snack 20 years ago)

-FlyerBeek
Thank you. Will be flying EWR to AMS this week in Polaris. Should I expect it as a pre-arrival snack instead of breakfast?
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Old Jul 6, 2025 | 7:26 am
  #456  
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Originally Posted by txp
Thank you. Will be flying EWR to AMS this week in Polaris. Should I expect it as a pre-arrival snack instead of breakfast?
No, expect std Polaris BF. This thread is about domestic F at/around 800/900 miles.
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Old Jul 6, 2025 | 8:30 am
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Originally Posted by HeadInTheClouds
You know, if UA had cut meal service on these flights and committed to redirect the savings to improve the quality on other flights, I think we all would roundly applaud the plan.
Sure -- for the 5 minutes it would take until they "enhanced" whatever quality imprvements they made with the savings.
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Old Jul 6, 2025 | 8:36 am
  #458  
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Originally Posted by cfischer
No, expect std Polaris BF. This thread is about domestic F ‘at/around 800/900 miles’.
Thank you, I got confused because another pax was talking about seeing this on a flight to HNL. But I forgot they don't offer Polaris service on the HNL flight. Many moons ago before Smisek, during the days of Gorton I believe, I flew IAH to HNL on CO's Business First and it was great. Somehow that got stuck in my mind. But now they just offer domestic F to Hawaii.
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Old Jul 6, 2025 | 9:00 am
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I didn't catch this earlier in this thread, but does cutting out the meal service reduce the staffing requirements by an FA or is UA's savings only in the catering costs?
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Old Jul 6, 2025 | 11:18 am
  #460  
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Originally Posted by 8MiHi
I didn't catch this earlier in this thread, but does cutting out the meal service reduce the staffing requirements by an FA or is UA's savings only in the catering costs?
Min staffing requirements are based on the plane and # of seats, not the service that will be provided.
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Old Jul 6, 2025 | 1:39 pm
  #461  
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IAD-MSP and v-v (just over 900 miles) had a boxed meal for F on the E175. I was expecting the older snack boxes, but they offered a choice of 2 each direction. IIRC, breakfast was a choice of an "egg and tofu scramble wrap" or "oatmeal," and lunch was a "chicken wrap" or a salad of some sort.

There was actually a decent amount of food in the boxes. The wraps were fairly large (if cold, given the lack of a galley with ovens), and breakfast included the typical yogurt and a muffin while lunch included a salad and a small cake.

It wasn't the best meal for a 907 mile flight, but it beat the snack boxes.
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Old Jul 7, 2025 | 7:25 am
  #462  
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Originally Posted by DJ_Iceman
I flew LAX-DEN this week and was offered a hot breakfast croissant that wasn't half bad (probably a carb and salt bomb, but I digress). Then today I flew DEN-LAX and was offered the margherita pizza which was... okay. I like being offered a hot item, but this one needs a little more work.

In both cases, the hot item was followed by the usual snack basket, seemingly with all the same usual items except I didn't see any fresh bananas which often used to be my go-to.
Well no breakfast on RNO-DEN this week in J! No breakfast croissant, no pizza, ... I did get a coffee on the 5:25 - 8:39 am flight. I passed on the small package of nuts and banana on the snack basket. When I enquired about potato chips, I was offered a snack basket from Y. Flight is 788 miles.
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Old Jul 7, 2025 | 9:19 pm
  #463  
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Originally Posted by FlyerBeek
Here's the pre-arrival pizza I was served flying LAX-HNL. I suspect it is likely the same as what's being offered on these <900mi flights.




-FlyerBeek
Where's the basil? How do they call this Margherita without any basil?
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Old Jul 8, 2025 | 7:27 am
  #464  
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Originally Posted by ExplorerWannabe
Where's the basil? How do they call this Margherita without any basil?
Basil is an extra expense that if incurred, takes money away from shareholders and makes C suite bonuses smaller.
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Old Jul 8, 2025 | 10:27 am
  #465  
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Originally Posted by ExplorerWannabe
Where's the basil? How do they call this Margherita without any basil?
The little dark specks on the surface of the pizza are surely dried basil.
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