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Home  >  Airline Meals • Airline Merger • Continental Airlines • News • United Airlines  >  End of an Era: Continental to Eliminate Complimentary Food on Most North American Flights
Airline MealsAirline MergerContinental AirlinesNewsUnited Airlines

End of an Era: Continental to Eliminate Complimentary Food on Most North American Flights

Matthew Klint Posted onMarch 15, 2010 6 Comments

An end of an era. Continental announced today that it will phase out complimentary meals in Economy on all North American flights under six hours.

Continental Airlines Inc., the last big U.S. airline to operate catering kitchens and to serve free meals to economy-class passengers on longer domestic flights, said Monday that it will begin charging for in-flight meals in coach class on many North American flights this fall.

Continental said it will continue to offer complimentary food in economy class on most international routes and on domestic flights that last more than six hours. "Our traditional free-food model has served us well for many years," said Jim Compton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer. "But we need to change to reflect today’s market and consumer preferences."

I understand why CO elected to do this. In addition to the monetary savings, the food just wasn’t that good. Iceberg lettuce, a packaged hamburger, and a KitKat? Better than nothing, but not at all tasty and certainly not necessary when none of their competitors offer free meals to Economy passengers.

The spokesman said the shift in food strategy should save the airline about $35 million a year by reducing the number of meals it serves without charge. Currently on domestic flights, the airline serves no coach meals on flights of less than two hours. Cold meals are provided on flights of up to three hours and hot meals typically are served on longer flights. The revenue brought in from sales of meals and snacks in coach class should allow Continental to upgrade the offerings to items such as fresh sandwiches, wraps and salads, the spokesman said. Some of the meals for sale will be produced by Chelsea.

Fresh sandwiches, wraps, and salads? Sounds like United’s BOB menu. The alignment continues!

CO’s billboards are going to need updating–or least an asterisk.

photo courtesy www.alwayshungryny.com

For better or for worse, the era of free meals on planes for all passengers will soon come to an end on the final U.S. holdout.

Full story here.

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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6 Comments

  1. Fozz Reply
    March 15, 2010 at 8:18 pm

    At least we won’t be seeing any more of the “Not Dog” after this fall.

    Though, seriously, anyone who didn’t see this coming should wonder. When the competition is a) charging and b) offering a superior product and doing it successfully, there was no way around it.

    CO closed the LA kitchen a few months ago so they have already been trimming the Chelsea operation quietly.

  2. Matthew Reply
    March 15, 2010 at 8:20 pm

    @Fozz: I agree completely. This was a move CO had to make.

  3. PeterT Reply
    March 16, 2010 at 5:29 am

    Devastating news…..it was good they held out for so long, but alas, they hit the dust. It is humorous that the Southwest and Jet Blue “snacks” offer more than coach these days. Nonetheless, with Coach tickets at same price or lower than discount airlines…a sad step they had to take. Airline travel: Where you have to log 100K miles a yr to have fun.

  4. Stephen Miles Jr Reply
    May 23, 2010 at 6:48 am

    To set the record straight, Continental’s competition is NOT offering a superior BOB program.

    I have flown numerous times on USAir, United, and Delta on flights ranging from 2 to 4 hours in length, and the only BOB option on all of them has been a “snack box” (basically crackers and other prepackaged junk food). The sandwiches and salads mentioned in the inflight magazine have NEVER been available.

    I have also flown even more times on Continental flights from 2-4 hours – there has almost always been a complimentary meal (salad + sandwich of some kind, be it burger, pretzel dog, calzone, pizza, or something along those lines).

    So what I fear is that if Continental is really copying the other airlines, then the only inflight meal choice on most flights will be the “snack box” – although the flight attendants have assured me that (supposedly) Continental is not going to stoop that low. Well, we will see, once the merger with United finishes, lol!

    By the way, first class is also in jeopardy. My parents have flown on American first class a few times over the past couple years – frozen pizza was the meal.

    A business colleague pointed out that Delta serves no food in domestic first class at all the times he has flown it.

  5. Matthew Reply
    May 23, 2010 at 7:51 am

    @Stephen: Thanks for your comment.

    I can’t speak for US Air and Delta, but on United you should have been offered fresh breakfast selections if your flight was longer than 3.5 hours and departed before 10am or fresh sandwiches/salads if your flight was longer than 3.5 hours and departed between 10am and 8pm. I think the $9 price tag is a bit steep, but it’s offered.

    I share your fear that snack boxes will be the only thing available on shorter flights–I think even the so-called “organic” snack boxes UA is currently offering are full of not-so-nice ingredients.

    It will be interesting to see what happens to First Class. UA hasn’t served frozen pizza in three years in domestic First Class. While their food isn’t great, it’s certainly edible, and sometimes tasty. Continental runs their own flight kitchens at many airports (Chelsea) and I am hopeful this will continue to be the case after the merger is complete.

    Before their merger with Northwest, Delta only served First Class meals on flights longer than 3.5 hrs that departed before 8pm. Since the merger, meals are now served on all flights longer than about two hours that depart during meal times.

    US Airways is the black sheep, still only serving First Class meals on flights longer than 3.5 hrs.

  6. Stephen Miles Jr Reply
    July 4, 2013 at 5:21 am

    2013 update on the inflight meal front, at least in my experience
    United – is offering fresh meals for sale de facto on routes 2.5 to 3 hours long, at least on the former Continental routes, especially from Houston – but oftentimes runs out, sometimes even before serving all of Premium Economy. First class food initially was severely degraded from Continental’s standard, but on my last flight in first class (June 2013) they had a new and much improved menu – tortellini or baked turkey, either with ample side dishes, salad, and hot cookie for dessert. Hot breakfast (my second most recent First Class flight) is decent – egg fritatta with broccoli and hash brown frittata – and UA has brought back the Continental cinnamon roll from several years ago!
    USAir – lasagna in first class on the one transcon I took. Shorter routes still all-you-can-eat dry packaged snacks. In Economy, only snack boxes on flights I have flown.
    Delta – food is back in first class, but was full of “processed” ingredients, until my last Delta flight, when the quality seemed improved. Economy now serves a complimentary small snack (cookies, chips, or nuts) – a nice touch. I actually deplane from Delta flights feeling well-fed, even in Economy.
    American – still just snack boxes, at least on flights I have taken. This was on IAH-LAX (American Eagle CRJ), even though UA offers fresh meals on that route (B-767).
    AirTran – did not see any meal offerings in Economy. And are no longer serving Biscoff cookies.
    JetBlue – still all-you-can-eat packaged dry snacks. But supposedly, Business Class is coming to some longer flights of theirs – maybe with a return to fresh food, who knows.
    Spirit – Buy-on-Board – although menu is in their seat back pockets and also advertised on their web site – no food was actually available on the flight (LAS-IAH red eye) – not even in First Class. And eye candy (their very fit and rather provocatively uniformed flight attendants) is not a substitute for actual food!

    I actually nowadays look for my inflight meal somewhere else (if I am not booked in First Class with meal service scheduled) – the terminal building! All of the airports I fly through regularly have upgraded their “food court” and restaurant offerings over the past few years. And now pack to-go appropriately for carrying on an airplane.

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