For this week’s Meal of the Week, I recall a business class dinner on South African Airways from nearly a decade ago. The meal was less memorable than the process of ordering it…
My brother and I were flying from Johannesburg to Munich. At the time, it was a daytime flight leaving JNB around 8am and arriving into MUC in the evening. Breakfast was served after takeoff and dinner prior to landing.
The menu had four choices for dinner: beef, fish, chicken, and pasta. About two hours prior to landing, the meal service began.
A FA appeared at our seat and asked what we wanted for dinner. I requested beef.
The FA responded that there was none left.
So I requested fish.
The FA responded that there was none left.
Keep in mind the cabin looked like this:
The flight was only about 25% full.
My visible look of annoyance was only overshadowed by the look of annoyance on the face of the FA, who so early hated her job it wasn’t funny.
Chicken it was.
Meal service began with a salmon appetizer, green salad, and hot bread.
The main course arrived and the chicken turned out to be delicious. In one sense, I was happy the beef and fish was “not available” because the chicken was nice.
Dessert was even better: a wonderful bread pudding in vanilla creme sauce.
While using the lavatory after the meal service, it came as no surprise when two FAs were sitting in their jumpsuits eating beef…
I kid you not.
CONCLUSION
I have not flown South African Airways on a long-haul flight since this one. I look forward to flying SA again soon. Hopefully, the FAs on this flight have moved on to another career.
Very typical for SAA. I recall Lucky being bemused if not condescending to a fellow pax who would only give his first choice meal, then noting how happy he was when he got it. Imagine if you continually have to fly with SAA and deal with this nonsense.