United Airlines in introducing fresh menus, local flavors, and more personalized service in Polaris business class and Premium Plus premium economy class on flights to Israel and India.
United Airlines Will Debut New Menus On Flights To India, Israel In Business Class And Premium Economy
As travel demands return and United faces competitive pressures from both its JV partners and its U.S. competitors, it is upgrading meal service in a big way in premium economy and business class on flights between the USA and Mumbai, New Delhi, and Tel Aviv.
First, United will move from a single-tray service to a three-step delivery service which seeks to streamline meal service while still providing a premium touch:
- Step 1 – Pre-meal beverage/cocktail snack/lay table linen
- via cart
- Step 2 – Main meal tray with plated entrée
- hand-delivered
- Step 3 – Dessert
- hand-delivered
For the first time in many years, United will redesign its menu, offering new, regionally-inspired choices, expanded mid-flight snacks, and even local touches in the pre-arrival service.
For example, menus on flights to Tel Aviv this month will feature:
- Salad
- Papaya cucumber salad with feta mousse, mesclun greens, and pickled watermelon
- Entrees
- Colorado-brown sugar flat iron steak
- Hasselback potato, rapini (broccolini crumble), mustard sauce, grilled green onion, fresno chili, and heirloom cherry tomatoes
- Chicken thigh with roasted shallots
- Pommes pont-neuf (fried potatoes), maldon salt, tarragon-demi sauce, and yellow beets
- Pasticcio bowl
- Vegan bolognese, vegan meatballs, three cheese tortellini, bechamel sauce, shredded fontina, fried basil, and cherry tomatoes
- Spinach flan
- Oyster mushrooms, yellow teardrop tomatoes, english pea coulis, and roasted corn kernels
- Colorado-brown sugar flat iron steak
- Dessert
- Ice cream sundae (pre-dressed)
- Tarts
- Cheese plate
- Mid-Flight Snack
- Marinated grilled chicken sandwich on ciabatta roll
- Potato leek and onion soup
- Pre-Arrival
- Gruyere-cocotte egg
- mushrooms, roasted yellow tomatoes, sage, dehydrated rapini, crostini ciabatta bread
- Brioche French toast
- blueberry-vanilla lemon compote, meyer lemon zest, and mango pearls
- Gruyere-cocotte egg
Kosher meals can also be reserved in advance.
Menus on flights to India will offer:
- Appetizer
- Chana Chaat with cooked chickpeas, red onions, tomatoes, spices, cashews, chili pickles, and tamarind/mint chutneys
- Entrees
- Chicken Tandoori
- Butter sauce, bhindi dopiazza (sauteed vegetables), dal bukhara (curry), and cilantro-garlic pilaf
- Khatta Meetha Kaddu (pumpkin)
- Lemon letil dal, okra masala, garbanzo beans, and vegetable rice
- Seared Lamb Loin
- Tournee cut potatoes, charred rapini, mustard sauce, green onion and fresno chili peppers
- Spinach flan with oyster mushrooms
- English pea coulis, garnished with yellow teardrop tomatoes, roasted corn kernels and fried potato fingerling chips
- Chicken Tandoori
- Dessert
- Ice cream sundae (pre-dressed)
- Indian dessert
- Cheese plate
- Mid-Flight Snack
- Marinated grilled chicken sandwich on ciabatta roll
- Wada pav (potato fritter)
- Pre-Arrival
- Gruyere-cocotte egg
- mushrooms, roasted yellow tomatoes, sage, dehydrated rapini, crostini ciabatta bread
- Masala Dosa Wada
- sambhar soup, tomato upma and tomato-ginger chutney
- Gruyere-cocotte egg
Importantly, these changes will apply not only to business class, but premium economy class. During the pandemic, the cutbacks in premium economy were particularly severe, with the pre-arrival service reduced from a full meal to a very light snack. These changes are notable and suggest that United will eventually restore a more substantial menu in premium economy on all routes in which the cabin of service is offered (premium economy will have a choice of two entrees, one meat, one vegetarian, of the four above).
CONCLUSION
This is nothing but good news – these entrees sound fresh and delicious and represent the biggest investment we’ve seen to the Polars meal service since it first launched nearly six years ago. My hope is that these regionally-inspired entrees and heartier snacks will spread systemwide as 2022 progresses.
I believe having food of the destination shouldn’t be the idea. You will get much better cuisine at your destination than what the airline can manage, instead i think each long distance airline flight should be a theme. Pick a country and it’s culture, cuisine, movies, should be the highlight of the flight. And handout a coupon code at the end of the fight to be used within one year for making a booking on that airline directly to that destination. This can be all put in a package and you move the package from one flight to another so it’s easy to manage. So for example trip to india you can package about mexico instead of having indian cuisine. You can have one backup dish for losers that aren’t multicultural and stick to only what they know.
This is a brilliant idea. You can work with tourism boards of the countries to defray the cost. I bet this idea is stolen in next few months just like my ideas of yoga place in the bar area of a widebody or sleeper pods in the back of the plane for passengers for extra charge were stolen. This time give credit to debit you jerks.
As Dice said….Here’s to you debit…..sucking my dick
By the way, as I said before, love the act. The bitter angry possibly drunk American trying to keep his job and stay relevant in a world that moved past him is gold!
Perfect statement towards Debit.
People are entitled to their own opinion, but it’s annoying when they go overboard and have their heads stuck up their butt while going ballistic on those who disagree. Like dang, quit drinking and take a chill pill.
Great news! Flying UA to DEL in May and glad to hear of the enhancements and return to normalcy.
A step but still below par of what even LH offers.
No starter is a glaring exception and forcing to have salad with the main at once on a 10 hour plus flight is unnecessary rushing to avoid having a cold main course.
The mains look properly plated which is getting back to par.
Totally agree on all counts, and not just because your name is Greg.
I also wonder what “pre-dressed” means for the sundae. Does that mean if you don’t like hot fudge, you’re out of luck?
No, it means they don’t bring a cart in the aisle. Toppings will be offered and then dressed in the galley. No one will be forced with chocolate…except me. I love it!
What exactly is the regional inspiration for the TLV flight?
So silly how airlines insist on florid marketing gobbledygook for simply putting out a new menu and service flow.
As an Israeli, I agree with this very much.
Not a single one of the dishes above screams’Israel’ to me. Most of what they wrote in the menu is pure gibberish.
Indeed.
They serve Israeli Couscous (a.k.a. ptitim) on flights to Australia, but couldn’t come up with anything Israeli here.
LH may have marginally better food, but nothing to match the Polaris seat (i.e. in J).
My last long haul trip was UA one way and LH the other, and United wins hands down.
Until LH come up with their new business class, UA can afford bad food on that front.
A masala dosa for a pre-arrival meal after several hours in the air? Did anyone bother to consider that they’re best eaten hot (and crisp!) and get soggy after even just half an hour (and no longer that appetizing). I highly doubt anyone is making them fresh on the plane…(not saying they *should* provide this dish, but there are plenty of other options that heat well).
I had them on SFO-DEL, tiny pieces of soggy dosa as you can imagine
It’s vada, not Wada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vada_(food)