United Airlines has made a number of catering changes to its onboard lineup. While all are small, cutbacks including halving the snack box selection and discontinuing craft and seasonal beer suggest a long road to recovery not just for United Airlines itself, but for amenities onboard.
United Airlines Eliminates Craft + Seasonal Beer
Effective last Saturday, United “replaced” its seasonal and craft beer with Stella Artois and Miller Lite (actually, both have been available for some time). You may still find Elysian Space Dust IPA and Goose Island 312 Dry-Hopped onboard until supplies are exhausted, but these sorts of specialty beer drinks will be going on hiatus. As of this morning, the craft selections are still listed on united.com.
Soft Drink Shortages
United is facing a vendor supply shortage of Diet Coke, Coke Zero and Sprite. As a result, onboard quantities may be limited. In the interim, United will board additional Coca-Cola, Seagram’s ginger ale and Dasani Lime.
Only Tapas + Classic Snack Boxes Now Available
Snack boxes have gone from something offered for sale in economy class to the primary “meal” service for domestic first class passengers. As part of its cost-cutting, United has eliminated first class meals on all but premium transcontinental flights (three routes: LAX/SFO-EWR, SFO-BOS). Instead, all first class customers on flights over roughly 2.5 hours receive a snack box in place of a meal.
But United has run into a supply program with these snack boxes and is currently provisioning only “Tapas” and “Classic” boxes. “Select” and “Ben Flying” snack boxes have been pulled due to “current shortages.”
Interestingly, many passengers have reported items missing from their “Tapas” snack boxes this month. Bruschetta and parmesan peppercorn seem to be the most popular items missing. In fact, many have been offered only “Tapas” onboard their flights and the contents of the “Classic” box seem to be the new standard fare for United Clubs.
> Read More: Exploring The Tapas Snack Box On United
Will Meals Ever Return?
I always have to preface that this is an ultimate first-world problem, but it does not appear that first class meals will return anytime soon. United will not offer any specifics (beyond unsubstantiated rumors from flight attendants that meals will never return until a vaccine is available), but with CEO Scott Kirby still in survival mode, spending additional dollars on in-flight meals is not a high priority. Expect to continue to receive snack boxes or bring your own food.
CONCLUSION
If you’re a beer aficionado, the news will be disappointing (thankfully, I have never found beer refreshing). But I think the bigger news is the continued uncertainty over onboard meals. Truly, if you get hungry onboard or do not have a chance to eat before your flight, bring food along. Don’t leave it to chance.
image: United
These pretzels are making me thirsty!
^broke the internet
Nothing like saving a minute fraction of a penny against a dollar by cutting out the little things that give your airline a tiny touch of class
Watch next for Illy getting cut in favor of the hot brown swill known as FreshBrew (CO’s finest)
UA continues to embarrass itself. Now if only SFO wasn’t my main hub…
Might as well fly Spirits Big Front Seat if the price is better.
Shooting themselves in the foot as are AA and DL by not giving premium cabin customers a hot meal, especially in these times of limited airport food and concerns about using hands to eat vs silverware.
All this is doing is setting up the airlines to dumb it all down to snacks on anything but transcons. Of course, in order to make up for the billions of dollars lost in this whole debacle, they will never go back to anything substantial in the way of first-class meals – probably for years, on top of which anyone upgrading or using miles to get into F-class will no doubt be asked for more miles….. the usual case of pay more/ get less.
Seems cheap on their part – they are probably buying all their beer from the same distributor so (outside of cost) it’s literally zero additional effort on their part to stock the craft beers. That said, the beers aren’t all that amazing. I always appreciated having a Goose Island because it is a local Chicago craft beer.
Agree – it’s probably an extra nickel a can vs. crap domestic swill.
Wouldn’t call Goose Island true craft (nor Breck nor Elysian, all AB InBev owned now) but they were a much improved option vs. Natty Lite.
Bye bye Wheatley, hello Popov!!!
I always love the intricate ‘process’ of domestic first on longer flights, kind of a geek flyer/spotter (so enjoy the intricate reviews of premium class). The seat comfort was secondary. I definitely won’t be paying/using miles to “upgrade” as long as it’s just a difference in seat size.
I remember back in the old days (early 2000s) getting handed proper dinner menus on NWA DC-9 3os AUS-MSP like it was international business. As a college student it only took a few $200 RT 3 leg transcons to make elite, and I played that game expertly (SEA-GEG, GEG-MSP, MSP-AUS, or AUS-DTW, DTW-MSP, MSP-SEA, for example…and with 3 FC meals and lounge access if I triangulated correctly). I rarely flew coach! Anyway, it gave me the bug, and until recently, I was willing to pay actual $$s for the privilege.
Same here, although going to college in STL and flying back home to SAN, I routinely was able to pull off STLEWRLAXSAN on CO (with the great transcon meals) or STLMSPLAXSAN on NW (and occasionally get a DC-10). I never thought that the meals served right up to 9/11, and even those subsequently after would be “the good old days” and in actuality it seemed like airlines were beginning to add back meals in Coach, albeit on only the longest segments. But that would have at least put us in a scenario around the time where Y meals were offered on flights 3+ hours which I think was being done still around 2005. I imagine it will be a long time until we see a proper meal domestically
It was a fun game! I remember doing an ORD-EWR-CLE-LAX-SEA once, and it was 3.5 decent FC meals, in a mixed CO/AS itinerary. A OnePass member could earn unrestricted elite segments on any Alaska, America West, Northwest, Continental flight. And, you could just walk up and ask for an upgrade at the gate desk, usually without interrogation and almost always with available space! What a time to fly before most people caught on. I still associate the taste of gin and tonic with flying, which reminds me that the NWA lounges were all self serve booze with those inverted bottle dispensers. Can’t imagine that today in a US lounge.
If along with the meal cut back they also don’t reduce the price of flying, screw them. Plenty of others that still offer service better than that.
What Scott Kirby ” service enhancements” will be next?
I really enjoy craft beer, but I find that it’s one of those things that doesn’t taste as good in the sky as it does on the ground. Surely there are others that have experienced this?
Definitely – I thought the Goose options were pretty poor IMO, but Space Dust is excellent, and one of the two Breck options (IPA in brown can, can’t remember the name) was great.
Not like we are going to get a DIPA/IIPA on a flight anytime soon, but any added hops go a long way at 38K feet.
The ” service ” ( hihihi ) from UA is a joke or x- double minus performance.
They excuses everything with Covid, but the truth is they want to spare the money.
Anecdotally, it looks like the “all-in-one” snack bags have been enhanced, too, containing just one snack item (Biscoff, in my most recent experience). Not sure if that’s a one-off supply issue or UA is trying to cut corners there, too.
Things are going to get a LOT worse before they get better, unfortunately.
Why are you taking ads from pro trump advertisers . There was an ad that said defund the media. I will boycott your blog.
I have not control over ads. Please reach out to Boarding Area, which hosts LALF.