Then buy a drink and pack your own food. In any case, it's hardly the airlines' fault that liquids can't come through security. I just do not see what is so bad about unbundling food from ticket price.
If everyone would start bringing their own food that would lead to a huge mess of transporting, storing, unpacking, preparing and disposing of food in all sorts of random ways at various times throughout the flight by the hundreds of hungry sleep deprived passengers. Airports would be even less efficient going through security, vendors trying to sell food to go and people congregating to buy things. There's really enough general unbundling of comfort and efficiency at airports already. I would definitely pay more if even more things was standardized and included for everyone on the flight (like luggage, security, airport seating).
>"huge mess of transporting, storing, unpacking, preparing and disposing of food in all sorts of random ways at various times throughout the flight by the hundreds of hungry sleep deprived passengers."
That's generally handled by having a cart with a garbage bag attached that comes by, and having people opening their food on the small trays provided.
>"Airports would be even less efficient going through security, vendors trying to sell food to go and people congregating to buy things."
Yes. It is called a "post-security food court".
>"I would definitely pay more if even more things was standardized and included for everyone on the flight (like luggage, security, airport seating)."
That's nice for you. A lot of people don't want that, or aren't willing to pay.
> That's generally handled by having a cart with a garbage bag attached that comes by, and having people opening their food on the small trays provided.
Considerable effort has already gone into making food service efficient. One of the few reason I can imagine to unbundle food is to have fewer flight attendants. But now you're suggesting they should service the passengers in a random rather than sequential order, as not everyone would want to eat at the same time. A tray doesn't really solve the problem of the person shaking their protein drink (which hopefully stays in it's container), the person having to grab the third thing from the over head storage nor someone spilling their to go coffee over you. Food service is efficient. It comes in bulk, everyone gets served, everyone eats, everyone throws things away, done.
> Yes. It is called a "post-security food court".
"Amenities" like food courts and shops is a big reason why airports are annoying. If it wasn't for trying to get you to buy overpriced things airport entry would be as efficient as airport exit and not some IKEA style maze.
>"Food service is efficient. It comes in bulk, everyone gets served, everyone eats, everyone throws things away, done."
Great. If an airline finds that it is more efficient that they bundle food with the ticket price, then more power to them. I just don't see why it should be required that they do so.
>""Amenities" like food courts and shops is a big reason why airports are annoying."
I am sorry that you are annoyed by food courts. On the other hand, I suspect that the fact they are usually full of businesses suggests that many people patronize them and find them useful. Again, I'm not sure what the proposed solution is. Prohibit airports from having food courts?
did you ever had guests in your home? did you ever have them full day inside, and didn't give them a single thing to eat the whole time? (ie those magical 14 hours). well of course no, you're not an a__hole, right?
alternative - food stalls in airports serving specific food/packaging for flights. haven't seen a single one in those 30+ airports i ever visited.
Another issue - many foods are outright smelly and many can't stand some smells (ie -> puking) - imagine 300+ people eating their own stuff inside the plane, on 14 hours flight. ever experienced a strong smell of any airline food? thank god or whoever for that.
as for food courts, they are full of 'businesses' since those have that overpriced and usually seriously crappy food paid by employer as part of trip expenses. they have their place in airports, but definitely add chaos and size - why do I need to wade through countless restaurants and boutiques just to get from checkin to gate? that's cheap. they could be in some designated accessible 'shopping area' for example.
But these would efficiency in the airports, and that's usually not the name of the game these days.
>"did you ever had guests in your home? did you ever have them full day inside, and didn't give them a single thing to eat the whole time? (ie those magical 14 hours). well of course no, you're not an a__hole, right?"
An airline is a paid service. I'm not their friend, I'm their customer.
>"alternative - food stalls in airports serving specific food/packaging for flights. haven't seen a single one in those 30+ airports i ever visited."
>"why do I need to wade through countless restaurants and boutiques just to get from checkin to gate? that's cheap. they could be in some designated accessible 'shopping area' for example."
Okay, I get it, you don't like the way airports currently are, nor all of their offerings. I still don't see why this requires that A Law Be Made governing what they are and are not allowed to offer.
I don't generally want to pay for business class, but frequent flyer programs and/or premium economy usually takes care of things like fast track, lounge access and priority boarding. But nothing of that is really special in itself.
What I want is an airline that doesn't undermine their own business by making things better for their passengers, but instead have incentive both to make things better and more efficient. If there's no upsell the airline have to make sure things are efficient and there's less reason to hold back on "goodies".
I know there have been attempts to make such airlines in the past, but maybe with the new smaller long range aircraft, that can go from smaller airports, and more competitive taxi market, for transfer, it could work.
> If everyone would start bringing their own food that would lead to a huge mess of transporting, storing, unpacking, preparing and disposing of food in all sorts of random ways at various times throughout the flight by the hundreds of hungry sleep deprived passengers. Airports would be even less efficient going through security, vendors trying to sell food to go and people congregating to buy things.
For any flight over 45 minutes I always bring my own food. It's better than anything I can get on the plane and cheaper too. There's nothing special about going through security as it's in my carry on.
Only catch is you can't bring large liquids (so no thermos full of soup). I suppose you could have a set of 3.5 oz containers you eventually merge into a bowl but that's a little too extreme even for me ...
Or, people could suck it up and not eat for an hour or two. Sure on longer flights a meal is welcome, but even missing a meal should not be a terrible burden.
No one is complaining about not getting food on a 1-2 hour flight.
Many of us routinely take plane flights that are longer than two hours. A cross country flight is 5-6 hours plus 2 hours at the airport before and often a half hour after to get checked baggage. That's an 8-hour day.
Sitting on a cramped airplane for 5-6 hours is pretty unpleasant already. Doing it hungry doesn't improve the experience.
With 5-6 hours of flight time I'm often lucky if it is only an 8-hour day. I almost never have access to a direct flight cross country, so tack on at least another hour plus taxiing, running to catch a connection, then waiting for the connection to depart. If you let airline algorithms/travel agents select cheapest available flights, the connection is quite possible entirely in the wrong direction, too, adding a bonus hour or two to flight times.
I've had companies crazy enough to ask if they could interview me on a cross-country flight day to save themselves a hotel night (after they were already planning to schedule the cheapest flights they could find), and I can only imagine those people have never traveled cross-country much.
When I fly international, it's more like 10-12 hours. Even assuming I had dinner before I boarded, sleep, and then wake up, I'm going to need some breakfast and a decent cup of coffee.
Then you have an even better incentive to fast, since it has been shown to reduce or eliminate jet lag [0].
I use this protocol on long flights and find it works well, getting me back in action within a day, even after traversing 8 time zones
It's not the airlines job to incentivize what some guy on the internet considers healthy habits. I want breakfast after sleeping through the night. Just a bit of fruit, some cottage cheese or yogurt, and some black coffee. Maybe throw out the dairy and give me an egg.
I already pay for that as part of the ticket price. I do not want them unbundled in a way that makes my very necessary breakfast more expensive.
Other people could say "Its not the airlens job to incentivize eating breakfast when so many people don't any more". I'm perfectly happy unbundling wasteful unnecessary gimmicks (from my point of view). And guess what? I win this one!
