First Class service + meals PHL-IAH (merged threads)
 

Curious if anyone has experience flying in First from PHL to IAH, and whether or not a meal is served. On the website it only shows "refreshments", but the flight is blocked at 3hr 57 minutes. (The shortest flight of the day is blocked at 3hr 37 minutes). I also called the CP desk and the agent told me that there is no meal service. :td: The flight is at 6:30pm and over 3.5hours, so shouldn't there be a meal? It will really be a shame for US not to have a meal service on this flight, especially considering the excellent meal service that CO offers on the PHL to IAH route with a full 3 course meal and soup.

Recently they seem to have upgauged the aircraft from E175 (which have been on it for atleast the past 3 years) to E190 which have first class, so even though its a regular route for me, my flight tomorrow will be the first one in first class.

If anyone has experienced the FC service on this route please let me know

This doesn't answer your question. But on a related note, I flew PHL-IAH earlier this year before the FC was installed in the RJs. So I purposely flew PHL-CLT-IAH so that I could fly up front. It was worth going to CLT. Next year I need to fly PHL-STL and I think I can go direct with the FC seats being added to the RJs. Sorry to hijack the thread. We now return control to the OP.

I think i saw a thread earlier today stating the the e190 doesn't have ovens

I saw the earlier thread about the E190 not having an oven, but that just referenced no hot entree. The PHL-DFW flights that operate with E190 still list a meal service on the site.

On the 190 flights the meal service is showing SNK2. I presume that's a cold light meal since the flights depart mid-morning, but one of our resident FA's would know for sure. FWIW, on meal flights like PHL-DFW the meals are shown a XC, where X is B(reakfast), L(unch), or D(inner) and C is for cold.

Jim

In reality, US uses a mileage rule to determine which flights get meal service and which don't, regardless of the published flight time (which is contrary to what they publish on their website). I believe the current threshold is 1500 miles.

Don't ask me how they determine which flights are given exceptions to this rule, and which aren't. You would think that PHL-IAH would get a meal if PHL-DFW does. Same with PHX-MSP (which currently does not feature meal service). A few years ago DFW-CLT used to receive a cold meal service, as well. Not sure if that is still the case.

The exceptions are generally based upon competition on the route. For example, US has strong competition from AA on DFW-PHL, so they serve a meal to be more competitive, even though the flight is under 3.5 hours (or under 1500 miles if that is true).

Internally, US used to use mileage which approximated the flight time shown on the web site. Some time in the last 6 months or so they changed to using time internally also.

Jim

I understand that, my point was that I'm not sure how US defines "strong competition" as you put it. There are other city pairs that seem to be pretty competitive that, while close or crossing the threshold, do not get meal service. PHX-MSP is one as I mentioned, and PHL-MIA is another one that comes to mind. Do you know what the determining factor is?

Meal Question
 

Hi,

I'm traveling to Houston and its on an E-190 from PHL-IAH. It's book for just under four hours. Will a meal be served in FC? I don't recall seeing a warmer on the E190's.

I did PHL to DFW last week, we got the "Wicker Basket" the new fig bars are pretty good as are the chips......

I could be wrong, but I don't think there are ever any meals served on any of the Embraer's.

HTSC

I would have said the same thing ...
 

... but on the way to something related, I stumbled onto this thread; scroll down to #4 there for something that may be germane ...

Now, to mildly hijack the thread ... Refreshments would seem to mean the snack basket, as per a flight of just over 3hrs at what used to be called lunchtime ? Then on a return, at just under 3hrs (at what used to be called cocktail hour), absence of word Refreshments means not even snack basket, even in F ?

PHL-IAH First Class
 

I was served a cold lunch plate on this flight. It wasn't too bad :)

I was wrong. The flight lists a meal. Oops!

HTSC