US Domestic First- No meals <3.5 hours
Dec 19, 2013, 10:46 pm
#301
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: DCA
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Agree with this 100%. Meals are tasty and generally good quality, but as you note the actual meat portion (in this case a chicken breast) is maybe only 3-4 oz, which is quite small. If you're really hungry, you'll probably need to fill up on the salad, bread, etc.
Dec 19, 2013, 11:15 pm
#302
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This has been my biggest complaint with US on meals, where AA uses GMO chicken size breast, US uses starved chicken breast... I'm one who wants to eat healther, but the portion size is really small on say a 6 hr flight BOS-PHX and the snack basket doest really offer much healthy choices..
Dec 19, 2013, 11:21 pm
#303
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: High Point, NC
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Posts: 9,171
A couple of oz reduction in the size of the meat portions will add up to a decent amount of money over a year. For a $10-12 Billion a year corporation it doesn't seem like much but as the say in Washington, "a few billion, a few billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money". Change those billions to millions or even hundreds of thousands and the same is true for an airline. I can't remember which carrier it was - one of the big 6 at that time - that removed 1 leaf from the 2 or 3 that were put under chicken salad or some such and saved a couple of million a year.
Jim
Jim
Dec 19, 2013, 11:41 pm
#304
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A couple of oz reduction in the size of the meat portions will add up to a decent amount of money over a year. For a $10-12 Billion a year corporation it doesn't seem like much but as the say in Washington, "a few billion, a few billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money". Change those billions to millions or even hundreds of thousands and the same is true for an airline. I can't remember which carrier it was - one of the big 6 at that time - that removed 1 leaf from the 2 or 3 that were put under chicken salad or some such and saved a couple of million a year.
Jim
Jim
Dec 20, 2013, 12:57 am
#305
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: High Point, NC
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Posts: 9,171
AA has tried to appeal more to premium passengers the last 6 months or so I'm not surprised that there's a difference. Parker has repeatedly said that the US hubs don't generate the revenue that the hubs of the bigger legacies do, so he couldn't pay more. Even assuming that's only half true it would apply to every controllable expense category, including catering.
Jim
Jim
Dec 20, 2013, 4:42 am
#306
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Location: AUS / GRK
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This has been my biggest complaint with US on meals, where AA uses GMO chicken size breast, US uses starved chicken breast... I'm one who wants to eat healther, but the portion size is really small on say a 6 hr flight BOS-PHX and the snack basket doest really offer much healthy choices..
Dec 20, 2013, 7:32 am
#307
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: AVL
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Dec 20, 2013, 7:54 am
#308
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To further expand on the selections offered in case anyone is interested (the whole process may be changing in a few months):
I believe, without pulling the website back up, that there are 3 domestic menus (using the word as in a restaurant) labeled cycle 1, 2, & 3 and each menu has two choices. Hence my use of the word cycle now and then. The domestic system is also divided into catering zones - again 3 I believe. Zone 1 is the western U.S., 2 is eastern, and 3 is caribbean/Latin America/Mexico (3 is an I think). Flights catered in zone 1 may get cycle (menu) 1 meal choices, zone 2 would get #2, etc. The next month all 3 zones change the menu but no two are on the same menu. So zone 1 would go to cycle 2, zone 2 to cycle 3, etc.
TATL flights follow the same basic basic procedure although more choices per menu in Envoy and are "zoned" by direction of flight plus TLV, and I think GIG have different menus and direction. So if you fly eastbound and westbound within the same month you'll see two different menus. If you fly to TLV and back within the same month you'll see two menus. Same for GIG. The next month the menu will change for all the TATL flights but there will still be the difference based on direction/destination.
Jim
I believe, without pulling the website back up, that there are 3 domestic menus (using the word as in a restaurant) labeled cycle 1, 2, & 3 and each menu has two choices. Hence my use of the word cycle now and then. The domestic system is also divided into catering zones - again 3 I believe. Zone 1 is the western U.S., 2 is eastern, and 3 is caribbean/Latin America/Mexico (3 is an I think). Flights catered in zone 1 may get cycle (menu) 1 meal choices, zone 2 would get #2, etc. The next month all 3 zones change the menu but no two are on the same menu. So zone 1 would go to cycle 2, zone 2 to cycle 3, etc.
TATL flights follow the same basic basic procedure although more choices per menu in Envoy and are "zoned" by direction of flight plus TLV, and I think GIG have different menus and direction. So if you fly eastbound and westbound within the same month you'll see two different menus. If you fly to TLV and back within the same month you'll see two menus. Same for GIG. The next month the menu will change for all the TATL flights but there will still be the difference based on direction/destination.
Jim
I was disappointed, to say the least.
Dec 20, 2013, 7:56 am
#309
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I'm a big eater and while the meals aren't huge, they're adequate for a big guy like me. I've never felt hungry after a US meal. I think they've done a good job on portioning.
Dec 20, 2013, 8:15 am
#310
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Boston MA
Programs: US SP, JetBlue Mosaic, AMEX Plat
Posts: 101
He spoke publicly in interviews saying that removing just a single olive from salads served on board would net the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings each year.
It was arguably one of the tipping points where airlines started to consider these things whereas in prior decades that wasn't the case. Reaction by the general public was positive because hey... "who would miss one olive?". The problem is that the public had no idea what was coming down the line over the next decade or two.
His statement formed the foundation and philosophy of modern day cost cutting measures. You can Google "Robert Crandall Olive" and read dozens of news stories about it.
Dec 20, 2013, 8:19 am
#311
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: SEA
Posts: 3,955
I like to eat and I don't really have a problem with the portion size. At home, I do tend to plate more protein and less starch, but I've found that most are not into that.
Dec 20, 2013, 9:02 am
#312
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LOL, same thing.... I had a chicken dish on AA and was really taken on how big it was... Now I haven't been lucky to have a steak on AA (yet) but some of the pictures is vey impressive for a domestic meal on a mid-con flight....
Dec 20, 2013, 10:59 am
#313
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: SEA
Posts: 3,955
Don't worry, you will on the new AA. However, in order to save costs, they'll no longer tell you what kind of horse it came from.
Dec 27, 2013, 10:04 am
#315
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: SEA
Posts: 3,955
So if your meal (redeye) is listed as "Continental Breakfast" is that code word for nothing? We didn't see anything on the PHX-BOS redeye this morning, other than the snack basket after departure.