Each week, 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.
Earlier this week I reviewed a trio of lounges at Washington Dulles and noted that due to pandemic-related concerns, all food is currently packaged. Knowing that I was about to step onto a transcontinental flight on United with limited food service, I decided to create my own dinner.
Creating My Own Airline Meal When The Onboard Meal Is Lacking
For my first hors d’œuvre, I took an “Appetaggio” (salami, cranberry, and mozzarella) from the United Club. The tart cranberries nicely contrasted the salty salami and cheese.
For my second appetizer, I enjoyed a bag of pita chips and a container of hummus, also from the United Club.
My main course was courtesy of the Lufthansa Lounge. That included a spinach salad with strawberries, pineapple, walnuts, and onions with a lemon vinaigrette dressing and a roast beef sandwich with cheddar cheese, tomatoes, lettuce and onions.
Finally, as a palate cleanser I enjoyed a bag of peeled carrots.
The meal left me quite satisfied (and the passengers around me quite jealous!). In fact, even the crew was impressed and asked me where I got the food…
CONCLUSION
I look forward to the day when multi-course meal service returns to first class on more United flights. But in the meantime, improvising with lounge food out of Washington Dulles worked quite well.
Note that lounges had eliminated individually-wrapped items prior to the pandemic precisely to prevent what I did. Indeed, the Turkish Lounge had sandwiches that looked even nicer, but I respected the sign not to take food out (the Lufthansa Lounge and Untied Clubs have no such signs).
With so many cutbacks during the pandemic, I certainly won’t judge you for taking a sandwich or salad from an airline lounge…
Is it allowed in the US to remove food from airline lounges to consume elsewhere? I thought airlines generally have a policy against this type of behaviour.
There’s no law against it. I respected the sign in the Turkish Lounge.
@emercycrite
If there is no sign saying so in the lounge, then apparently it’s allowed? I guess?
I doubt there would be a *law* about this. What’s relevant here is the lounge operator’s policy.
some lounges last year were take-away only as there was no eating inside in some states like Calif…..
United Club rules state that food may not be removed.
“Food and alcoholic beverages may not be brought into Lounge locations. Food and beverage is provided for consumption and use in the Lounge and may not be removed.”
https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/travel/airport/united-club-and-lounges/rules.html