United Airlines’ first-class food on some flights is a “cheese plate” on where a full meal service was previously available. But it’s rather obvious that this is essentially the same as the snack box sold in economy for less than $10. Why is United pretending that this First Class meal is not just a disassembled snack box?
If you are considering booking travel or signing up for a new credit card please click here. Both support LiveAndLetsFly.com.
If you haven’t followed us on Facebook or Instagram, add us today.
This Snack Spans Longer Flights Than It Should
I can appreciate that shorter flights don’t warrant full meals even on aircraft equipped to handle hot foodservice like the Embraer 170/175s (though United chose not to install ovens), my favorite aircraft in the domestic fleet (excluding trans-continental routes). But this isn’t just for short flights, like Houston to Dallas, Chicago to St. Louis.
I can wait four hours, but that’s not really the point. It can be a long time between meals depending on when the flight departs. Early morning departures from some outstations may not have food available in the terminal in the morning prior to departure. The commute to the airport, parking, and security takes 90 minutes plus boarding and flight time all push it just over 5:10 from the garage door to your arrival terminal and that assumes no time to get ready in the morning.
It can be 6-7 hours depending on a variety of factors between meal times and for first-class passengers on flights. While it’s better than a simple snack bag and it does come with alcoholic beverages, morning commutes to business appointments keep many frequent flyers ineligible from this added perk.
For what it’s worth, American Airlines offers a similar product to United’s snack box on some morning flights.
Route Blocked Times Should Matter
United officially offers meals on flights of three hours or more. That’s flying time, however, not blocked time. At some airports that means four hours in the metal can but a flight time of less than three hours.
My particular route is slated for 2 hours and 56 minutes of flight time and is blocked for 3 hours and 20 minutes. If I board absolutely last at the time the door closes, I am on board for 3 hours and 30 minutes, but if I board when they open boarding it could be nearly four hours until I am out in a terminal again.
The established route time should reflect blocked time, meaning that if the rule is really 3:30 minutes blocked, then at least passengers know up front – but for passengers, a departure and arrival time that exceed three hours deserve a hot meal.
Cheese And Crackers Are Fine, But They Aren’t A Meal
United would agree with me that this isn’t a meal in the sense that they call it a “snack” on the service listing. Nearly the same offering is available in the back of the plane for $10.
First-class holds value beyond just the seat – United would state that it does – so why are they giving a coach elite in the back of the plane flying a cheaper ticket the same meal as a paid first class passenger? How does that distinguish the product? Why would a 1K pay to upgrade (and remove any doubt of clearing) if they get a similar snack box in the back of the plane?
The seats are wider, true. But beyond that, a 1K passenger in 7D on a United E170 and a passenger in 2D have roughly the same legroom, board at the same time, they may even share an overhead bin, and they get the same meal. Why would an elite who doesn’t clear pay more for a paid upgrade to first, especially when their fare stays the same in regard to the accrual of status and points.
Who Is Lazier?
While I am tempted to lean toward United management punting to this weak catering option, they can’t be held entirely to blame. I have been served this deconstructed snack box more than a dozen times on early morning flights and sometimes it is removed of the packaging and sometimes not – that falls on the flight attendant.
On a flight this week, the FA skipped the hot towel (first world problem I know – but this is a site dedicated to first world situations) and then couldn’t be bothered to remove the contents from their packaging. In this week’s instance, the FA literally placed the plastic over the top of the plate, keeping in mind that just four meals were served as the other eight passengers slept or declined the snack.
This is the definition of mailing it in both from United management and the FA who “served” it.
The Emperor’s New Clothes
While the image I included is perhaps the best presentation I have had of the “Cheese and Crackers” meal in first on United, most often, the salami is still molded into the plastic form, ejected from the plastic package. This is not a premium cabin service on other carriers. Granted, this was domestic and on international flights, service is far greater. (Here’s my Polaris business class experience from San-Francisco to Hong Kong.)
It’s a case of the emperor’s new clothes and I don’t think any of our readership, or any of the elites are so stupid to believe that the “Cheese and Crackers” first-class snack is anything more than a re-presented snack box from Coach. Worst of all, it’s insulting. I recently spent $1449 on a domestic first-class seat and this was what I was treated to. I had neither an opportunity to eat in the morning before I left the house, nor prior to my meeting.
Can United at least feign interest in offering something along the same lines but not the exact same packet? Is a small Summer Sausage so much more expensive than the brined slices molded together by vacuum-sealed plastic? Could they offer a honey pot instead of the little packets? Maybe use those ovens to simply toast the bread instead of opening a bag of crackers?
It feels like they think passengers are too stupid to notice, and that’s upsetting. It’s a customer-adverse move and unacceptable if only due to the brash nature of it all.
What do you think? Are you okay getting a re-assembled snack box in first class on a three-hour flight? Do you find it to be insulting? Are you just happy to be upfront and first-class customers are paying for the seat and not the snack?
Note: While LiveAndLetsFly.com offers credit card affiliate links, the opinions expressed are of the author alone. This site does not include any bank reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed content or credit card offers from card companies.
That’s nasty.
The reason for all the dialbacks and drawdowns are clearly a result of entropy in the system. First-class isn’t what it used to be.
Bravo! My sentiments precisely in fact flying today PDX-SFO-OMA. Breakfast served ennroute from SFO-OMA, but here I sit at Yankee Pier getting a hot Breakfast as I know on board it’ll be a cold one. Dinner a few weeks ago from MSP-SFO was a really crappy cold entree salad Meh pass.
Why pay for an such inferior product? You wouldn’t pay $$$$ for a used Kia when you could pay the same for a BMW. Stop complaining and start flying a better airline.
Which would you recommend?
Delta and JetBlue are consistently ranked higher by your fellow bloggers (thepointsguy) and independent researchers (J.D. Power).
Delta is valid, JetBlue has just one route from PIT (and other cities I travel to and from) so as much as I’d love to be TrueBlue – I just can’t.
I appreciate being placed on the pedestal of JD Power but I wouldn’t be so inclined to call the credit card website masquerading as travel advice, The Points Guy, a blogger. But that’s just my perspective.
All US carriers are similar. I flew on all three recently. I don’t find Delta so ”special ”(I wouldn’t call it a BMW) except their fare is higher and it just another air transportation renting a bigger seat at first class getting me from point A to point B. I have to say Jetblue is a great choice however their network isn’t as strong as United(star alliance), Delta is nothing comparable to united’s network and they are just slightly better on food(their aircraft are still in the 90’s) if you seeking for service you need to fly middle east carrier, they have the real first class. For me destination matters especially on domestic most of the time my status can get me upgrade so that’s also a big perk. It’s only a 2 hours flight, I wouldn’t pay extra for airplane food going on Delta or JetBlue which I have to transit through 20 different airport to get to my destinations when I can get something decent while I am on the ground and take direct flight. All airplane food on US carriers are trash.
Alaska.
Unfortunately, as much as I’d love to make Alaska my carrier (I live in Pittsburgh) and despite being MVP and halfway to MVP gold, they don’t have enough domestic options east of Seattle for that to work. I have a similar problem with JetBlue as much as I like them.
I agree, don’t feel guilty about bringing up first world problems. You should get what you pay for and if not, you get to voice your concern by taking your money elsewhere. Even if you get a “free” upgrade, you paid for it by being loyal to United with your previous flight history.
To MA’s point, I no longer chase status because all 3 of the US legacy carriers are worthless. You’re right that it is impractical to do without a US legacy carrier if you fly a lot. I rarely ever use a US airline for international flights anymore.
All that packaging waste for what amounts to garbage…
That’s really disgusting. I can’t believe we have digressed to soda crackers served in plastic.
Thankyou for the warning. I haven’t flown in 20 years, I didn’t know that it was this bad.
Off topic… but has anyone noticed that United miles/Points post just a few minutes after the flight completes now? I was on two flights today… By the time my Uber got me home, I had been credited for both flights.
It used to take 2 or 3 days for miles to post…
I wrote about that here:
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2019/04/05/united-mileageplus-2019-changes/
Pretty insulting indeed!
I have to chuckle every time I come across yet another article describing something United Airlines has done poorly.
Having grown-up in San Francisco, where for most of my life United has been the dominant carrier, I have scores of UAL horror stories going back to the days of the DC8’s. No longer living in the States, I’ve been able to completely avoid United for well over a decade – and plan to do so for the rest of my life.
Here’s the deal folks: United Is A Bad Airline. Stop expecting them to please you and just FLY ANOTHER CARRIER!
The world of venture capitalist ownership.
Profits first, second and third…passengers are a nuisance.
This example relates to United, but it’s a world wide issue. Qantas is notorious for serving appalling snack-like crap in J, notably on ‘supper’ flights, aka anything departing after 1900. Singapore to Melbourne for example, QF38, offers a grilled cheese sandwich ( a 7 hour flight) followed by the most continental of breakfasts imaginable . Dreadful.
Perhaps these airlines work on the assumption that people will eat in a lounge prior to departure but it’s not always possible to do that.
I agree its lame.
Any reason why the pmUA livery is still being used for articles?
For variety.
So the next United post will have 727s in the Saul Bass livery for “variety”?
I suppose the reason I bring this up is you are trying to present a credible argument about the “current” state of UA catering in F. Arguing the point that it makes a difference and it’s unacceptable to present a meal to F passengers with salami sausages in a plastic package, offer a honey pot instead of packets, etc. and that UA “feels like they think passengers are too stupid to notice”……..and yet for that attention to detail its not really important to post a “current” picture of UA’s livery because of “variety.” Sorry, perhaps a small item and not important in the scheme of things, I would just expect that with all the attention to the little details with respect to airlines that this site seems to focus on, that it would matter.
To be clear, I don’t think the SEO image of the livery really matters in regards to the context of the post. For those that are AvGeeks, seeing a throwback to perhaps a time when catering wasn’t mailed in could be nostalgic.
For the avoidance of doubt, the creation of an image used for SEO purposes to serve as the “Featured Image” on WP sites has to fit certain parameters in order to deliver the same or similar user experience across multiple platforms. This includes specific sizing requirements, image quality, rights to use and re-use for commercial purposes, and then the file size. For the avoidance of doubt, it’s a great deal of effort to get the right image for this one specific purpose and even then, we occasionally get notices that the image has restrictions. Therefore, I limit the amount of effort I put into the Featured Image as opposed to the content itself. If I post two United posts on the same day (like last weekend), it makes sense that I would try to mix it up (http://bit.ly/2I2nG5h – http://bit.ly/2PauYEM). You’ll also notice the same Featured Image on most of my American Airlines posts too.
In regards to the attention to detail, I can appreciate that for certain situations. We likely are both annoyed when a picture of a 747 is used for a story on the 737 MAX, or in a movie when the plane taking off is not the plane landing. Side note on that topic, a producer would likely notice (as would audiences) a character getting into a Crown Victoria private car and getting out of a minivan taxi on the end of their journey, why are airplanes different? But in this instance, my attention to detail in regards to the relevant current livery seems unimportant to me but clearly not to our readers. I will keep this in mind when selecting the Featured Image in the future.
Yeah I got the same “meal” last sunday on BZN-ORD 1st class. 6:30am flight no other meal options. Thankfully I didn’t pay as much for the fare as you did.
Funny how United sends out these “tell us about your travel experience on such and such a date”, SOME of the time. Seems when they serve up this trash as a meal they don’t want your feedback on how you really feel. But when they are the only direct flight to BZN I’m not changing planes in MSP with Delta just because their food selection stinks. Such is life…
Continue to name and shame them. If enough people publicly humiliate them, maybe…just maybe these American airlines will start giving a damn…again.
Talk about phoning it in. United seems to think that this is Spirits Big Front Seat not First Class.
I wouldn’t call it disgusting but its absolutely pitiful. It sends such a loud and clear message that they don’t care and aren’t even trying. It would be bad enough on a short flight that they don’t even have a bespoke first class snack. But when you consider that this is being applied on flights just under three hours its nuts.
It’s decided. You gotta move. This United situation is untenable. I’m half kidding. Time to move to another city where you could be better served.
To add to what you have said – it is not even cheese. It is “cheese style” cheddar cheese and other weird flavored chemical something nastiness according to the label. And at least in your photo you got salami. None the last couple of times I have been served this gross pretend meal. Mine did come with a banana and a plastic cup of corn flakes (I ate the banana not the rest of the garbage) My most recent service of this fake cheese snack box in tons of plastic was on a flight over four hours out of Canada. I am a loyal United flyer, but this is beyond pitiful.