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.
The big-three U.S. legacy airlines tend to mimic one another. If one cuts, the other two cut. If one adds, the other two add. But when it comes to first class meals on a select shorter flights, American Airlines continues to outshine United.
This week, I highlight the difference in meal service between American Airlines and United Airlines on a flight from Washington, DC to Chicago. It’s a 612-mile flight and takes about two hours.
Fly United in the front cabin and you’ll be offered items from the snack basket during you flight:
Fly American Airlines during meal hours and you’ll be offered a full meal. A good one, I might add. On my flight, I was offered a choice of Cobb salad or creamy tortellini pasta. Service began with a large ramekin of mixed nuts. The main course included the tasty tortellini, hot bread, and a side salad. A hot chocolate chip cookie was offered for dessert.
Talk about a substantial difference! I don’t fly domestically for the meal service and will still stick to United this year, but I applaud American for offering far superior meal choices plus the ability to order in advance online.
Do note, however, that DCA-ORD is an AA exception market. In other words, you will not get this meal on all 600-miles AA flights in first class, only on about a dozen routes listed here. Still, it a market where AA strongly beats UA.
United used to offer meals on this route during its “Business1” program. That was over a decade ago, though, and it has been many years since we have seen a meal on this and other shorter routes.
CONCLUSION
American Airlines (rightfully) takes a lot of grief, but what a welcome change the hot lunch was on this flight over what I am accustomed to on United Airlines.
Do you prefer meal service on American Airlines or United Airlines?
I agree with you Matthew. I mostly fly American as I have Platinum for life (having flown almost 3 Million BIS miles). There are a LOT of areas they can improve but I agree with you their meal service is much better than others. Plus I agree that it’s nice to be able to pre-order meals in Business and First class.
Congrats on speaking at the FTU event in Seattle. I’m heading there in March so look forward to hearing you speak.
The ability to pre-order meals is something I wish all airlines would copy. AA even lets you pre-order BOB in coach now. It’s a little thing, but one of the few “enchancements” that actually improves the passenger experience these days. I have found myself needing to use the BOB on occasion, and it’s nice to not have to worry about the FA running out of the cheese plate before reaching you.
FYI, while your meal looks pretty good, I have to say AA’s catering on the whole leaves much to be desired. Their domestic F catering used to be pretty decent; the pasta dish was always a guilty pleasure. Sadly they’ve gone trendy lately, and the choices just don’t do anything for me.
I agree that is has gone downhill (from the pictures I see), although the few (five) meals I’ve had over the last couple years have been good.
I think American’s First-Class meals are terrible. Every time I get one I feel like I’m fyling Third Class. The only thing I remember being top-notch and really liking in the past year was some kind of caper-like hybrid vegetable that was part of a dish served on a flight from LAX to ORD in October. I wish I could remember the name of it.