If you’ve got a redeye flight coming up in United First, do yourself a favor: avoid the sandwich and order yourself a special meal.
Since UA enhanced their meal service earlier this year, gone is the fruit and cheese plate on redeye flights and in is a hot sandwich, wrap, or pannini with a side salad, chips, and cookie.
The sandwich, though not horrible, leaves much to be desired so if my upgrade clears at least 24 hours before my flight, I order a special meal. Prior to the meal enhancements, all special meals would be cold (as was the fruit and cheese plate), but now that sandwiches have been rotated in, full hot special meals are served.
I usually return to Philadelphia Sunday night from Burbank via San Francisco, so the three pictures below are all from UA29, the 10:55p flight from SFO-PHL.
And the special meals don’t just look good: they actually taste good. It is my hope that special meals on domestic flights will not be a thing of the past once the merger is complete…
Standard Meal
Hindu Meal
Moslem Meal
Is the Moslem meal vegetarian?
@quasiconvexity: No–there was some meat in mine. It is Halal though.
Any other good special meal choices you recommend? I’ve heard that the low fat meal can actually be better than the regular.
@Sean: I’ve tired Low Fat and Low Sodium meals. They’re okay, I just like spicy food better.
With the low fat meal and low sodium meal you would probably receive a warmed chicken breast with some red sauce on the side and either orzo or rice with a bowl of fruit or salad and some packaged cookies.
Thanks for photos. Nice to see what they all are.
Wow, those look really good. I have an upcoming p.s. flight where my upgrade has cleared. Do you think it is worth getting the meal on that flight or will the p.s. food trump the special meal?
@Marcus: p.s. menus have not looked all that great to me this year, so I would order the special meal. You can still get hot nuts and a sundae if you want it.