Don’t Eat the Food!
USA Today reports that the companies providing in-flight meal service to the airlines got a bad score on their health inspections and the food might not be safe to eat.
Seriously, though, who really wants to eat the food anyway? You don’t get much, if anything, on the domestic flights. That is is actually okay by me since the food was hardly worth writing home about in the first place. The international flights still have meal service, but if you sit in the cramped coach seats, it is hard to eat with any sense of dignity. Eating chicken Parmesan with plastic cutlery while your elbows are tied to your sides is no simple task, although it’s sometimes fun to watch. Loaded with sodium, fats and preservatives, what you usually get is, for the most part, unhealthy even if it is sanitary. Meal service seems to be something airlines use to keep all of us entertained and happy between movie showings. And, let’s face it, about half-way through that second feature, the barely palatable meal turns into a brick in your gut.
I have gotten to the point where I try to eat prior to boarding and skip the on-board dining experience completely.
The airlines have been unbundling their ticket prices and charging for everything from extra baggage to exit row seating to early check in to who gets to board first.
It wouldn’t bother me if they unbundled food charges on international flights and gave passengers the choice to purchase meals or not. I bet that the flight attendants would approve of the change since they have to work hard to take care of a full flight and probably get more complaints than compliments on the food anyway.
The major airport terminals have done a good job of increasing the quality of restaurant offerings over the past few years. I have had some pretty decent meals in the terminals around the United States. Since the food is better on the ground, I would rather spend a few dollars on decent food before I get on the flight and get a discount off the ticket price. So, what do you think about the airlines knocking a few bucks off the price and giving us a choice? It might save them money and a lot of wasted bad food.
Better yet, for every meal passengers choose not to eat on a flight, maybe the airlines could make a donation to an organization that feeds the world’s hungry. That gives us all an opportunity to reduce the waste and do a little good.
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