Think Buying Airline Meals is a Pain? Soon, We Could All Be Paying Just to Check a Bag.
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 01.23.06 | 8:32 AM ET
I know major U.S. airlines stopped offering free hot meals on many domestic flights a while ago, but I’m still having a hard time adjusting. My e-mail confirmation for an upcoming American Airlines coast-to-coast flight declared “FOOD FOR PURCHASE.” What might that be? Cold sandwiches, an airline representative told me. It’s not the end of the world, I know, but such cutbacks are sucking what little pleasure there is left in flying right out the cabin door. According to James Gilden’s story, On Most Airlines, the Frills Are Gone, in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, we can all expect the sorry trend to continue in 2006.
Writes Gilden:
Terry Trippler, an airline expert with online travel agency Cheapseats.com, predicts it’s only a matter of time until the airlines start to charge not only for food, but also for advance seat assignments, checked baggage and even carry-on bags. Already, British low-fare carrier Flybe charges passengers about $3.50 per checked bag—if you book it in advance. It will cost double if you check it without a luggage reservation.
Other industries have been moving in this direction for years. Full-serve gas costs you more. You pay for furniture, and then to have it delivered. The airlines have just been slow to catch on.
“A movie is $10, but you pay $7 for popcorn and Coke,” Trippler says. “The airlines will take a lesson from the movie theaters. People will spend the buck.”
Not only are passengers suffering, but so are airline catering companies like Gate Gourmet and LSG Sky Chefs. A Jan. 2 Los Angeles Times story reported:
Spending on food by major U.S. airlines has dropped by nearly 30% since the end of 1999, forcing big catering firms such as Gate Gourmet International and LSG Sky Chefs to slash operations and cut thousands of jobs to survive the drop in demand for their services.
“You could just see the air going out of the balloon,” said John Whisnant, Gate Gourmet’s senior vice president of marketing and business development. “I don’t think we see the hot meal coming back in coach.”
What to do? The same story reports that travelers are loading up on food purchased at airport concessions. At Los Angeles International Airport, for example: “food and beverage sales in the first 10 months of 2005 jumped 13.9% to $100.9 million from the same period a year earlier, even as passenger traffic grew just 1.7%, the airport said.”
Wendy Boucher Garrett 01.23.06 | 11:28 AM ET
Do you think that airlines will quit permitting you to bring on your own food just as theaters don’t let you bring in outside food? I.e., are they looking to profit? Or are they just in cost-cutting mode? Either way, I agree that it keeps getting harder to enjoy a long flight. No wonder those who can do it knock themselves out with a sleeping pill.
Jim 01.23.06 | 2:30 PM ET
Good question. I guess time will tell how far the airlines will go. I’m not optimistic.
Gary Potter 01.24.06 | 1:15 PM ET
Checked baggage for American curbside at DFW is $2 per bag. And since the airlines don’t do their own catering, my guess is that they’d rather see and end to all catering. It’s high overhead.
Jim 01.25.06 | 2:29 AM ET
Makes sense to me, Gary. But it doesn’t mean I/we have to like it.