Airlines cutting back on in-flight food service

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 7, 1985 by Alan Liddle

DENVER -- Frontier Airlines once presented its inflight meals with china, linen and silver. Complimentary beer and wine flowed as part of the service, which was lauded by passengers and used as a showcase by caterers.

Today Frontier passengers eat off plastic with plastic and wipe their mouths with paper napkins. No hot meals have been served since June.

While changes at other airlines in recent months have not been so drastic, some airline caterers say they have seen two trends develop: the use of more cold meals, especially on lunch flights, and a general downgrading of service. Uncollected debts left by failing airlines are also bringing about changes in the catering industry, they say.

Fred Harnisch, director of dining and cabin services for Denver-based Frontier, and said a need to cut operating costs so the company could lower its fares and stay competitive with other carriers was behind the discontinuance of hot food. By eliminating dishwashing and laundering costs associated with linen and silver service, by cutting out snacks and meals on some flights and by banishing heating equipment, the airline reduced its proposed $27 million 1984 budget by $8 million to $10 million, he estimated.

Frontier expects to serve about five million meals in 1985, down from about six million in 1984. Its 1985 in-flight food budget will be nearly $15 million.

"We're not serving junk now; it's quality food," Harnisch said. "But, from the president on down, every single employee is aware of what we used to be and what we are now," he added.

Frontier's situation might be unique, but other airlines have curtailed service or are now offering more cold food either because of consumer preference or for economic considerations.

If passengers on a recent Continental Airlines New York-Denver flight closed their eyes and let their imaginations run wild during the noon meal, they might have been transported back to elementary school.

The rustle of waxed paper as sandwiches were unwrapped, the sound of potato chip bags being torn open, in some cases by anxious hands, in others by teeth, and the scraping of little wooden spoons on the bottom of paper ice cream cups brought to mind rainy days when school children with bag lunches sat indoors at their desks. In some cases, businessmen in three-piece suits struggled with the new-generation cellophane bags containing the chips or grimaced as they licked the rough-hewn spoons.

A Continental stewardess later said the switch from hot to cold food on some flights had been made in an effort to cut serving and cleanup costs.

Jack Costello, president of United Airlines' food-service division, said his company had "lightened up lunch quite a bit. We're boarding more shrimp salad and salmon mousse." He said the change resulted from suggestions garnered from frequent users of the carrier and from the realization that "most people aren't used to sitting down at noon and having [only] a salad and roll."

Harnisch agreed with Costello that a growing number, if not a majority, of lunch-flight passengers appear to prefer lighter meals. He noted that most of the "very negative comments" about his airline's cold-food program come from dinner-flight passengers.

Passengers desiring the traditional for entree at noon are not forgotten under United's lighter-food program, Costello said. Some alternative hot meals are provided.

Noting that not all all had turned cold in the skies of United, Costello said short ribs of beef remain the airline's most prepared meal.

United spent almost $220 million to prepare and serve approximately 30 million meals in 1984. Costello said the budget will increase about 5% to 6% in 1985, and the number of meals will also rise.

Giving an opinion that probably better reflects the feelings of the more successful air carriers, or the caterers who deal primarily with those airlines, Costello remarked that the in-flight food business had "stabilized over the last two or three years."

Gary Keller, who is responsible for serving 59 different carrier clients as director of airline sales and service for Texas-based Sky Chefs, sees things differently. He described times in the airline catering industry as "turbulent," but then he admitted that term might be "too strong."

The airlines are all "doing something different," he said, "changing [menus] on a month-to-month basis."

Asked whether constant change would make it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain or increase profits, Keller answered, "It [change] Keller answered, "It [change] presents us with opportunity. As they say, 'Sometimes the opportunities are almost insurmountable.'"

Keller said Key Chefs is preparing more salads, meat plates and sandwiches for clients. Little, if anything, is saved in the food-cost end of catering by the move to cold meals, he asserted.

"Cold food generally requires more labor than hot food," he added. "Slicing, dicing and curling to give it [an appealing] appearance must take place."

Speaking of the airline industry in general, he said, "The big trend is to cold food. Another trend is to down-grade service: from meals to snacks, from snacks to beverages."