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Home » United Airlines » United Airlines Will Serve French Fries With Cheeseburger In First Class
United Airlines

United Airlines Will Serve French Fries With Cheeseburger In First Class

Matthew Klint Posted onMay 4, 2023November 13, 2023 35 Comments

a burger and fries on a plate

In a rather daring move, United Airlines will start offering crinkle-cut French fries with its first class cheeseburgers starting later this month. Will United be able to pull off decent French Fries?

French Fries On United Airlines

The domestic first class meals will largely be staying the same this month, though with one important addition on select flights. When taking a look at the menu for an upcoming United Airlines flight, I noticed that the usual cheeseburger was available as a pre-order option, but included French fries! There was even a picture (above).

I thought I’d write about this once I tried it, but someone shared a memo with JonNYC on these French fries, which give us a bit more insight:

  • French fries will be available starting on May 10th
  • These will only be available via pre-order and only on hub-to-hub flights
  • French fries will be placed in a box wrapped in oven-safe plastic in the onboard ovens
  • The meal tray will include an empty bowl for flight attendants to place the French fries in

Now git yer french fry on: https://t.co/DAGKWdrrfr pic.twitter.com/xLtivRbM0v

— 🇺🇦 JonNYC 🇺🇦 (@xJonNYC) May 4, 2023

United Airlines does cheeseburgers well and I enjoyed one last week on my way to the Freddies.

a plate of food and a drink on a blue place mat

The addition of French Fries will sadly mean the elimination of salad with the burger option, though a side of lettuce, tomato, and pickles will be offered.

I’ve had French fires in the air a number of times. Most recently it was on Air Serbia on a flight from Istanbul to Belgrade. The French fries came out soft, but were still quite enjoyable.

a tray with food on it

a plate of food with a burger and fries

a plate of french fries

CONCLUSION

United Airlines will start offering French fries with its crowd-pleasing cheeseburger in the first class cabin of select flights later this month. At this point, I’m quite curious and will reserve praise or judgment until I try them. But I do appreciate the effort. It’s worth a try…

Have you ever had good French fries on an airplane?

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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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35 Comments

  1. Malik on Wall Street Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 11:59 am

    Not gonna lie, I haven’t had fries on an airplane before so it is something. It will either be a huge success or backfire horribly.

  2. Brandon Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 12:03 pm

    I see this going extraordinarily poorly. I can only imagine how soggy and nasty those fries will be.

    • vietri Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 12:06 pm

      I hate the processed look of crinkle cut fries, hand cut please. Crinkle have more surface area so shouldn’t be horrible, but tbd

      • Brandon Reply
        May 4, 2023 at 12:46 pm

        One can hope. But, as you said, TBD. Just oven fries have never worked out for me.

      • vietri Reply
        May 4, 2023 at 12:51 pm

        I agree, fries really need to be fried. The closest I ever came to decent with oven were these but I gave up on oven fries myself otherwise. https://i.postimg.cc/rwzPR4Rs/Screen-Shot-2023-05-04-at-12-50-15-PM.png

  3. vietri Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 12:05 pm

    I will say a rosary that whoever is holding the plateware budget hostage will replace these ugly dishes so we can all move on https://i.postimg.cc/cJpyLCr2/United-Airlines-French-Fries.jpg

  4. Christian Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 12:06 pm

    Hey United! Learn how to provide decent BASIC food before you try to do French fries! And this is coming from a 1K that packs snacks when I am in Polaris on my international flights.

    • Troy Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 6:55 pm

      Well said, Christian… agree completely.

  5. Jan Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 1:01 pm

    Crinkle cut fries are already soft/soggy coming from many restaurants/fast food places, not thinking an airline version will be well below that standard. They should offer thick cut potato chips instead.

    • vietri Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 1:03 pm

      They shouldn’t be if fried correctly but workers probably pulling too early. Not sure how they will fare in the ovens.

      • Santastico is Fantastico Reply
        May 4, 2023 at 1:14 pm

        You have experience pulling out early?

        • vietri Reply
          May 4, 2023 at 1:27 pm

          Fantastic-no, my least favorite NPC in Matthew’s wide and varied collection.

          While I can certainly cook, and cook well, sexually, Taureans have no problem with stamina or in the bedroom. I’ll spare you the specifics to keep this PG. I am very picky and selective but BDE is always high demand, so no shortage of suitors and takers.

          Now if I was an NPC, different story.

          https://i.postimg.cc/Kj0CdSHv/C5515-EB9-B3-CB-438-B-81-CB-7-D501815-FCCB.jpg

    • Aaron Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 1:53 pm

      I think there are airlines out there who could pull it off. I just don’t think UA is one of them…

  6. Jerry Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 1:22 pm

    So now what are we supposed to eat once we land at LAX?

    • vietri Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 1:27 pm

      It does seem the push towards lounge eating is the strategy.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 2:42 pm

      Jerry, I always leave room for In-N-Out.

      • vietri* Reply
        May 4, 2023 at 4:29 pm

        You said you eat healthy at home lol. Never had it but reviews are mixed. Once Ghislaine Maxwell was photographed there it lost appeal

  7. Derek Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 1:43 pm

    Hasn’t UA heard of an air fryer?

    You get the best fries in an air fryer

    • vietri Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 1:48 pm

      Actually good point because that made me think how the lovely Breville Smart Oven works and it has convection. air friers and apparently plane ovens are also convection according to Simple Flying. So maybe there’s hope after all. They must have tested, right? Unfortunate they are removing the salad though but it was rather pitiful to begin with so might as well go comfort food.

  8. Santastico Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 2:31 pm

    Wondering if they can have an airfyer on a plane as that would do the trick. Otherwise it will be soggy.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 2:32 pm

      If they can make leather out of beef I’m confident they can burn French fries to a crisp.

    • vietri* Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 2:37 pm

      Apparently they do https://simpleflying.com/how-food-is-cooked-on-an-aircraft

      Plane food is designed to be reheated. These on the ground facilities will prepare, cook, and package large quantities of meals. Depending on the type of food, after cooking, it will either be chilled or frozen until it is reheated onboard (usually within ten hours of preparation). A lot of food, including most meats, are carefully partially cooked. The reheating process will then take over the final part of the cooking.

      Once onboard, the chilled food needs to be heated using the aircraft ovens. Each type of dish will have instructions for its re-heating and preparation. For most economy meals, reheating simply takes places in the provided tray. For more luxurious premium cabin meals, they will often be reheated in a provided tray and then transferred to other dishes for serving.

      The ovens on an aircraft are specialized convection ovens with food heating using hot air. Microwaves are not used (although some early 747s did have them onboard). The meals are loaded on trays into the oven. Most meals take around 20 minutes to heat, and of course, they are heated and served in batches.

      –Perhaps this answers my question about eggs..chilled then reheated? Also I wonder how true the 10 hours thing is.

      • CO flyboy Reply
        May 4, 2023 at 3:17 pm

        You are correct about the convection ovens onboard planes. At Continental when I was flying, we’d have filet mignon boarded barely cooked – just browed on the outside with grill marks. Trick to cooking a good filet onboard was to take the lid off the aluminum pan, and only cook for about 15 minutes on 300 – came out medium rare every time. However, if you didn’t take the lid off before cooking the meat would steam, turn gray and overdone. Eggs benedict was never cooked in the oven. Hot water from the coffee maker was poured into the pan to warm, then with the muffins & hollandaise heated in the oven, they came out perfect. Only problem was the flight kitchen didn’t always board poached eggs. Cleveland station was notorious for boarding fully cooked eggs. Our early 747’s had microwaves as well as our DC-10s that were industrial strength – 10 seconds in those microwaves would turn most everything into molten lava. If UA crews do it right, the fries should come out okay.

        • vietri* Reply
          May 4, 2023 at 6:37 pm

          Very interesting, thanks! Appreciate the info on the eggs, too. I’ve heard that those types of tips for cooking the filet and many other service related items are not currently in the (very short) service section of FA training–not sure if accurate–but that overall most employees (if they put in the effort) pick up the type of knowledge you’re speaking of on the line. Either way. I really don’t know how they do it on narrow bodies alone with such limited storage space and room to work. As a server who dropped a tray of 10 cokes all over people a large party at Pizza Hut when I was 16, kind of fascinating to hear about they work.. thanks again.

        • vietri* Reply
          May 4, 2023 at 11:52 pm

          Also was the benny ever served with the well done eggs? Meaning were any pax requesting ever culinary creations? Please write a book on your career and promote it here when ready. Love reading this kind of thing.

          • vietri*
            May 4, 2023 at 11:53 pm

            were any pax ever requesting culinary creations?* must be dyslexic or needing to wear my stronger rx glasses

  9. Argosy314 Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 3:15 pm

    The arrival meal on ORDHNL back in 2021 featured a hamburger with sweet potato wedges. They were absolutely gross in texture and overcooked…..can’t really see french fries holding up much better. I’ve come to the conclusion overall there is no way to properly replicate restaurant french fries in any sort of air fryer…..I expect to be disappointed with these as well and would much prefer potato salad or a green salad as an accompaniment.

  10. Jared Houser Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 4:12 pm

    Matthew how was the cheeseburger this month? Think the current one is called the four cheese skillet cheeseburger. It doesn’t look that appealing in the pictures as previous ones, and there are actually some good preorder options this month, so I haven’t gone with the burger but curious if you enjoyed it.

    I had the beer cheese burger a month ago or so and it was fantastic, probably the best of any of the UA burgers. Was hoping they kept it around for longer but they seem to always change them out.

    • vietri* Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 11:59 pm

      They all look and sound pretty good and iirc Matthew loves them all. I’m all for the comfort angle with the overall menu but also with a some elegant healthy options. Comfort and healthy, but make it Martha Stewart.

  11. Greg Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 10:59 pm

    Matt FYI check the Flyertalk let’s eat thread…

    UA has seriously upgraded the wine in Polaris, at least on Europe – USA as of May 1 – even a printed wine list

    https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/35215105-post848.html

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      May 4, 2023 at 11:05 pm

      Saw this (and also a memo from UA). Story coming!

  12. Kona Reply
    May 4, 2023 at 11:36 pm

    There is no first class in United neither on any US based airline

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      May 5, 2023 at 11:28 am

      That may be true in practice, but not in marketing:

      https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/cabin/first.html

  13. Uli Reply
    May 5, 2023 at 2:05 pm

    “Fires in the air” are always dangerous, whether French or from anywhere else. Scaring to hear that you have already experienced that several times. 🙂

  14. ARivera Reply
    May 5, 2023 at 2:13 pm

    I just got off a flight where they only had Chicken Katsu or Jackfruit on Polaris. Chicken with rice and a side of rice. FA said they haven’t had burgers in a long time. Not even in economy. I love that burger in a pretzel bun. Better than any entrée. I love United but the food is barely edible.

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