I’ve heard of some crazy delays over the years, but nothing quite like the delay of United Airlines flight UA19 to Milan on Sunday. On the one hand, the delay was pathetic. On the other hand, it was genius.
UA19 EWR-MXP Delayed…Due To EXPIRED Business Class Meals (And How United Airlines Solved The Problem)
The incident was shared on FlyerTalk:
On July 2nd, 2023, I boarded flight UA19 EWR-MXP. Departure of the flight was delayed by approximately one hour (as usual on this route). After we were all onboard, an additional 30 minutes passed without any information regarding the delay. It was only when the [purser] made an announcement that we were informed about the extended delay. Apparently, the delay was caused by expired meals loaded for the business class passengers.
Wow.
We are not talking about an out-station airport or a spoke on the network; this occurred at a major United hub and its main transatlantic gateway.
How does an expired meal get loaded in the first place? How does one even know that the meals are expired? Was there no one in the catering kitchen who caught this? Was it flight attendants who noticed an expiration date or was there mold or other signs of spoilage?
My understanding of Polaris Business Class meals (based on the way they were served during the pandemic) is that there are no expiration dates, though perhaps a flight attendant can chime in and clarify.
I’ve asked United about this – let’s see if we receive a response.
Passengers onboard faced a three-hour delay while waiting for catering to assemble new meals for business class and deliver them to the aircraft. That was deemed unacceptable so United came up with a plan to expedite the delay:
To rectify the situation, United Airlines offered all business class passengers a voucher to purchase food at the airport before departure. Eventually, the flight took off with a delay of approximately two hours.
The key question is how large the voucher was: I have been unable to confirm that, but it would be quite telling, no?
Of course, some may lament that Newark concessionaires are run by OTG, but I have enjoyed some nice meals at Newark Airport. Frankly, I would rather have a medium rare filet from Saison than anything served onboard:
This was $60 though…I doubt Polaris passengers received a voucher that high.
In any case, I like the solution: there is enough variety in Newark Terminal C to give passengers a choice and the entire process of buying food and bringing it back onboard saved at least an hour and possibly more versus waiting for fresh catering.
CONCLUSION
When a United flight to Newark was catered with “expired” meals, business class passengers were sent with a voucher back into the terminal to buy food for their flight.
Now this is still pathetic: something like this should never have happened in the first place. But given that it did, I like how United thought outside of the box.
But it also makes you wonder how often meals that may have expired slip by unnoticed…
Have you experienced a catering delay on United?
UA could have sent the business pax to the Polaris lounge and issued each a takeout container to fill and bring back on board.
That’s actually a very good idea – not bad at all.
United’s catering is terrible. This incident illustrates just how much of a shit show the UA EWR operation really is, rain or shine and why I continue to avoid both for any flying needs.
Seriously? Are you defending this nonsense? So the pax go out and get mediocre terminal food and then what? They let it sit during taxi and takeoff, as it gets cold or lukewarm at best and then they eat it?
This is beyond pathetic. Only a US airline could manage this level of incompetence.
I’m not defending anything – I called it pathetic. But I think the passengers got better food in the terminal than they would have onboard…
i should clarify, you defended UA’s handling of the situation, which IMO was still pathetic (their handling, not your defending of it).
Seems like in this case substantial compensation should have been offered + the option to wait and have the appropriate meals loaded on the aircraft. Seems like zero comp was offered though.
I would have preferred the “Last plane out of DaNang” or “Last plane out of Kabul, Afghanistan” approach, which would be to get the plane out ASAP and have the passengers eat an economy meal, business class wine, and get a bit of compensation. Time is money. I have flown better airlines’ business class and the food is secondary to getting to the destination and a nice seat. But fun to read about problem.
Yes give $500 compensation and get going, and offer the option to deplane and rebook with the compensation as well for those who really value food and have the time
This presupposes that the plane has enough economy meals to cover the whole plane. I doubt that very much because that would mean United would be tossing dozens of meals away on every flight.
So the result would still be the same…they’d have to wait for catering to supply more economy meals.
Given UA J catering I imagine if given an equal value the voucher was for $4.87.
When in the 80s I served in an Eastern European army (compulsory military service), one day we got tinned meats which had expired 5 years beforehand (according to the label). We notified the sergeant – all the tinned meats were promptly removed from the tables.
Next day the same tinned meats reappeared, but now with new stickers with a new expiration date over the ones showing they had expired 5 years beforehand. Glad United did not do that…..
Hahah! Hilarious story.
Prob not so funny at the time.
Well, this being the Army of my home country back then…it did not surprise us.
Surprising that they couldn’t have taken catered meals from later flights to accommodate those who had no dietary restrictions. The flight to Milan is by no means the last TATL flight of the day for UA out of EWR. Continue shuffling meals from one flight to another until the new meals are made.
+1
Other than leaving late, this is an ideal scenario. One can get better food than what is offered on board, and then enjoy quiet sleep without the noise of a slow meal service.
When flying, meals are the least important part. I would prefer the option to leave on time and get economy meal or voucher for later meal. I’d even opt for no meal at all to leave on time. Seems like they should have given options prior to delay. But I doubt they’d get a consensus so likely wouldn’t help.
Under your plan, would all business passengers need to agree? What if one passenger did not agree to an economy meal? And what if there were not enough economy meals for all passengers? Would you feed a business passenger and let an economy passenger go hungry?
I never eat dinner in business class going eastward TA in UA; I’ll eat in the Polaris lounge before boarding so I can sleep after take-off. Load a few extra economy meals and get the show on the road.
When I was an airline station manager, I saw a few colleagues at other airlines deal with missing First Class meals, or a shortage of them. The issue was that the catering kitchen at the airport assembled everything the day prior, so in the morning there was not anybody to do production, on top of the fact that even if others were ready and at the kitchen, it would be an hour to get them (most airports the catering kitchen is outside the fenceline to facilitate deliveries). At this airport the catering kitchen was sort of a mess anyway due to short staffing. I had to go buy out the nearby 7-11 of ice a few times in the morning just so my first 6 or 7 flights could have some.
I saw the Delta manager one day buying a selection of McDonalds breakfast combos which were going to be provided to the First cabin of a 3.5 hour midcon flight (plus a bunch of miles and I think he said a $50 gift card). Another day, United Supervisor was buying crab omelets to make up a shortfall on a transcon flight… aircraft was upgraded and had 8 more seats up front. Probably a better deal than the eggs McSmisek the others got on board. In either case, the customers were presented with the option or given a heads up and overwhelmingly agreed they’d rather eat McDonald’s or what not than take an hour delay over a crappy airline meal.
I’m sure if this were coach meals that had expired, the answer would have been “tough luck.” But all the rarified egotists in Business Class get the kit glove treatment. Pathetic.
As they should.
You get what you pay for
We’re not Communist where everyone deserves the same experience
And it’s ok to provide the value that the upper classes (literally) in this case deserve. But… it shouldn’t come at the expense of holding up the plane for everyone without compensation (in this case, under 3 hour delay). Economy class schmucks should have gotten a small voucher as well, at least for a drink and snack, to feel better for their wasted time.
In this case, it also begs the question what compensation, if any, the airline got for the delay due to the caterer. They have contracts.
People pay big $$$ for those meals in business class. It is part of the experience. I’ve been lucky to have had good meals, including shrimps, on all my business class flights. The analogy is someone paying for $7 of cafeteria food vs. a $65 meal with appetizer, entree, dessert, and snack. The food being served on real plates and with real utensils makes it special for business class passengers.
Anything at the airport would be better than United food.
This must set some sort of rcord for sheer stupidity and incompetence. The people I feel for are the economy passengers – the delay did nothing for them. Did they just have to sit on the plane and amuse themselves while the business class passengers were permitted to disembark and go on their shopping spree?
It’s not an expiration date problem – the meals must be kept at a certain temperature and are only good for so long after they leave the kitchen. It’s possible that the aircraft chillers had a problem that were unable to keep the meals at the correct temperature or in fact the meals just simply ‘ timed out.’
Right. That seems a more likely explanation for what happened.
AMEN! You are absolutely correct
Given that United has a financial interest in the OTG operation at EWR, I wonder if they have a policy of just comping meals in the terminal?
I’ve never enjoyed the steak at Saison. I hoped it was expensed.
You didn’t like it? I’m pretty snobbish with steak (not os much on United, though) and thought the quality was quite good.
I can beat it! Was on a flight delayed ~20 min bc they forgot to load the biz class plates. UA BOS=SFO 777 many years ago. They did not announce the reason over the PA.
I am a US based airline flight attendant, and I don’t have direct knowledge of this incident. However, the first meal service entrees are pre- loaded onto the ovens by catering, and not in the chillers. So if there is a significant delay, caterers are recalled to either remove the entrees from the ovens and put back onto their trucks or often they will bring dry ice to keep them cool until the new departure time. If they cannot be saved, e.g. we retuned to the airport or gate, they usually replace them. The second and subsequent meal service items are in the chillers or on aircraft without chillers, they are on dry ice in the cart or in a thermal bag.
So the economy passengers only got screwed and didn’t get anything in return? It is little wonder that I don’t fly United. Checking United’s performance on FlightAware, they should have light breakfast on the flight so the often late travelers can make the most of their first day there.
I used to work for BA and we would have special paper labels inside the food trolleys that would change colour if the trolly became too warm… eg if the refrigeration failed. This could have been the reason for them expiring.
When it says the meals were expired, couldn’t it also mean that they weren’t handeled properly? Maybe somewhere after the meals were made, they weren’t refrigerated properly, or they were left out too long, and it wasn’t caught until it was too close to departure time. I hope this was the case, rather than the meals being made a day(s) before.
https://www.aviationpros.com/gse/catering-cleaning-equipment/news/12435423/lawsuits-claim-united-airlines-mishandled-listeria-contamination
EWR catering went from restaurant quality to institutional cafeteria crap. The BusinessFirst/First Class meals may have been boring, but I spent many years enjoying decent sized salads, appetizers, steaks, airline chicken breast, and ice cream sundaes only to see it wind up with the seemingly ubiquitous chicken calzone/bouquet/hot pocket and an overcooked cookie. UA is quick to blame the changeover from Chelsea to whoever runs the kitchens, now, but “premium” dining on UA is a joke and they clearly don’t seem to care but will happily price the J/F cabins as if the soft product is comparable to other airlines. I still am convinced the expectation is passengers will eat in the UA Club or Polaris lounge so they cater based off of that line of thinking.
OTG sucks!
They could have sent everybody back into the Polaris Lounge and let them do takeout like anything they want as much as they want and get a whole tray of cookies too that might have been a good solution…
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When an airline tries to become a flying restaurant, No I’m not going there with the complaints of bad food, cold food, wrong food. Oh no.
United catering is still awful, especially out of EWR, and what’s amazing is that they outsourced all their kitchens to 3 companies which are worse than having an in-house kitchen and are never held accountable. Again, how does Delta do it?
Hi Matthew,
any feedback from UA so far?
Nope. There has been no response.
I don’t know if a FA has chimed in but it’s like any restaurant. The meals temps are taken by the caterers after they are loaded onto the aircraft. Many times I’ve seen caterers come out and take meal temps. If the temp goes too high, just like a restaurant, the meals may not be any good due to possible pathogen growth. This is especially true in stations where the local board of health is cracking down on the local catering kitchen. Also the amount of time they can sit on the aircraft is limited. Yes there are chillers but they aren’t as cold as refrigerators so they may not keep the meals cold enough to pass local board
Of health requirements.