Air France managed to serve a rather elegant little Business Class meal on a flight of just 250 miles between Basel and Paris, and while it certainly wasn’t a feast, I thought it was very well done.
Meal Of The Week: Air France Business Class From Basel To Paris
My flight from Basel/Mulhouse (BSL/MLH/EAP) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) is technically a domestic French flight (since the airport sits in both France and Switzerland) and covers only 250 miles.
That does not leave much time for a meal service.
Air France nevertheless offers Business Class passengers a small meal box on its shorthaul network, part of a catering concept introduced in 2024 and developed with Servair Corporate Chef François Adamski, a Bocuse d’Or winner and Meilleur Ouvrier de France. For flights departing after 10:00 am, Air France serves what it calls a “signature” sandwich along with a French sweet or dessert, with the selection changing regularly. It is served in a sturdy cardboard box.
On my flight, the meal consisted of two finger sandwiches with smoked salmon and a creamy herb filling on brown bread, along with a small pecan tart and a chocolate.
I don’t know precisely what Air France called the sandwich (there was supposed to be a menu card but mine did not have one), but smoked salmon, cream cheese, and herbs is a combination that is hard to mess up. The bread was soft, the salmon tasted fresh, and there was enough filling that it did not feel like two dry pieces of bread with a token sliver of fish in between.
It was simple, but very good.
The dessert was even better, a small caramelized pecan tart, with a rich filling and crisp pastry shell. Alongside it was a small dark chocolate topped with a few flakes of gold leaf.
Very French…and quite tasty.
Air France says these meal boxes are refreshed monthly and are intended to showcase local and seasonal ingredients, with French-origin meat, poultry, and dairy products, PDO cheeses, and sustainably sourced fish. The airline also serves wine and Champagne in proper glassware, though I just had sparkling water on this flight.
I tend to think presentation matters almost as much as quantity. Nobody reasonably expects a multi-course meal between Basel and Paris, but a nicely presented sandwich, a good dessert, and a glass of Champagne is enough to make Business Class feel like more than simply an empty middle seat and a curtain…which is all it used to be.
And compared to what most U.S. airlines would serve on a 250-mile flight? I appreciated it.
CONCLUSION
Air France served a simple but very enjoyable Business Class meal on my short flight from Basel to Paris: smoked salmon finger sandwiches, a rich pecan tart, and a small chocolate.
For a flight of only 250 miles, I thought it was excellent…a small meal done well is far better than a larger meal of subpar quality.
My Meal of the Week feature examines an airline meal from my travels over the years. This may be a meal from earlier in the week or it may be a meal served over a decade ago.
Air France? Elegant? (Actually, that checks out.)
The simplistic packaging and presentation looks Apple-lish. Little things matter.
Air France remarkably serves an even more extensive meal on London to Paris and Paris to Amsterdam, both flight of only an hour or so in duration. If you’re lucky, you can down two or three glasses of US$50 champagne. The quality of the meal and the wine is better than what Delta serves in first-class and even Delta One on much longer domestic U.S. flights.