–
My frenemie Brett “Cranky Flier” Snyder begged me (ok, he just asked) to write a guest post for his tiny, insignificant blog. Normally, I would have just ignored Brett’s email (which I do 98.7% of the time). But he and his lovely wife delivered my baby avgeek niece or nephew, so I relented.

I had one of the best jobs in the world – airports and security editor for Aviation Week magazine. That, along with being a judge the past four years for Airports Council International-North America’s annual concessions contest and my extensive world travels going back to when I was 5, has given me a fine appreciation of what I like to see in airports when it comes to concessions.

I’m old enough to remember the days when airport concessions consisted of “Newstand,” “Restaurant,” “Snack Bar” and “Gifts.” but oh, how times have changed!! This change has come for two reasons.

One, as airlines have merged and cut routes and frequencies, they are paying airports less in landing fees and rent. Two, because of post-9/11 security changes, travelers are spending more time in airports, and they’re demanding more sophisticated food/beverage and retail options. So below are my five picks for airports doing great things with their concessions programs.

• Portland International Airport – This is a rare airport, in that they don’t contract with a big concession operator like HMS Host or Delaware North to handle their concessions. They use their own in-house team to come up with what I think is a near-perfect mix of local/regional and national brands. On the food side, they including the Laurelwood Brewing Co., Pizza Schmizza, Starbucks, and Panda Express. On the concessions side, there’s the iconic Powell’s Books, Columbia Sportswear, and The Oregonian news stand.
• San Francisco International Airport – I’ve had the chance to see my original hometown airport evolve over the years, and I love the changes. Among its treasures, this airport has a full-service medical clinic and a world-class art museum. As I write this, I haven’t been to the new Terminal 2, so nothing in there is in this post. But great food options abound: Andale Mexican Restaurant, Boudin’s Bakery and Café, Tomokazu and Peet’s Coffee. Retail options are U Threads (sells clothing and items from Bay Area universities), Aviator Books, Coach, and Ghiradelli.
• Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport – This has always been one of my favorite airports because of features like free Wi-Fi, two pet parks, and one of the first cell phone lots in the country. Terminal 4 (home to Southwest Airlines and US Airways) has some great food choices: Blue Burrito Grille (restaurant and carry-out), Paradise Bakery and Café, Einstein Bagels and Quiznos. On the retail side, check out A to Z Kids, In Celebration of Golf, and See’s Candies.
• Chicago Midway Airport – I have actually scheduled some of my Southwest Airlines trips to go through Midway because I love the shopping options there. The main concessions area has an actual sense of place. Food choices include Harry Caray’s, Nuts on Clark (I’d kill for this popcorn), Ben & Jerry’s, and McDonalds. Available retail choices are House of Blues, Discover Chicago, and Kids Works.
• Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport – I did an insider’s tour of this facility a few years ago and had a grand time. This is a very passenger-focused airport, with concessions including free Samsung lounges (with seats, outlets and Wi-Fi) and the giant Shop 24 vending machine that sells everything from diapers to Caesar salads. I’m also a big fan of the La Bodega Winery, Cereality Breakfast Bar, Dunkin Donuts, and Au Bon Pain. Retail options include my beloved Bijoux Terner (everything is $10!), Natalie’s Candy Jar, Official Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop, and Bose.

–
I appreciate Brett allowing me to blog on one of my favorite topics. You can follow my musings over at AviationQueen.com and follow me on Twitter at @AvQueenBenet.

I showed up at what looked like a fortress just before noon. Behind big gates with strict security, I entered the new LAX kitchen for LSG Sky Chefs. LSG handles the provisioning for Alaska in every one of its stations except for Newark and in the Hawaiian Islands. (There is no LSG kitchen at Newark.)

I was taken up into a big room where we would do our tasting. There were three faces I recognized – Bobbie Egan, Media Relations Manager was there as were Kirsten Robinett, Product Manager of Onboard Food & Beverage and Lisa Luchau, Director of Onboard Food & Beverage. Beyond them, there were several other people in the room working feverishly. Was this all done for me? Thankfully, no.

Alaska does this regularly to make sure everything is up to snuff. There are monthly menu tastings in Seattle, quarterly kitchen audits in the hubs, and annual audits in the other kitchens around the system. How Kirsten and Lisa don’t weigh 700 pounds is beyond me, because it seems that their job is to constantly eat, even if it is in very small portions.

The kitchen audits aren’t just about tasting food, however. They go to the airport and observe the operation. Is the food being delivered to the aircraft properly? Are the carts organized correctly? Are all the temperatures right? Is the recycling collected on board actually being recycled? It’s a very thorough process. As part of this, they do a menu tasting, and that’s where I got to participate.

Along the wall, every dish prepared by the LA kitchen was set up as it should be presented on the airplane. Each year, Alaska puts together a meal plan that will start in April and go for a year. Meals are rotated monthly but will likely pop up four times during the year thanks to regular rotation. I say “likely” because some get pulled out if the feedback is too negative. One was the portobello mushroom sandwich. Apparently, the team loved it and so did many passengers, but it didn’t go over well with everyone. It was on thin ice.

The executives have a weekly team lunch. It’s a regular meeting but it’s catered with food served on the airplane. (Most of the time, it’s with buy on board options from coach, but sometimes it’s the First Class food.) Once, they served the portobello mushroom and the word came down quickly – it had to be ditched.

Some foods, however, make it beyond the one year mark. The Angus cheeseburger, for example, has survived year in and year out as one of the most popular choices. Still, they’re careful to rotate it out so as not to have it wear out its welcome. It just keeps coming back.

While standing at the long table, I realized just what kind of attention to detail you need to have in this job. Kirsten was quick to notice that the butter was served in a little plastic case. That shouldn’t be that way in First Class, she noted. As we moved down the table, they pulled out a cheeseburger to show me just how much effort goes into these things. The cheese is folded in half because it melts better that way. It’s also placed upside down in the bun so it’s pulled out more easily by the traveler. It’s the little things . . . .

We looked at the four snack boxes that are shelf-stable. There’s a new kids box that they’ve been trying out – it’s been getting rave reviews. There’s also a vegan snack box, a deli box, and a vegetarian one. These look just like any other snack box but the products inside are different. There’s a heavy emphasis on using items from the Pacific Northwest. The discussion kept coming back to Beecher’s Cheese as an example – it’s a cheese that until recently was only made in Seattle.

We ended up sitting at a table and the tastings began. All food is served from a galley cart and on to Alaska’s usual plates. The silverware is the same too, because they need to make sure that airplane knives can cut adequately through the items. Everything has to be as close as possible to the actual situation on the plane.

We started off small, eating bits and pieces. But that was before I got to this great pork dish with meat falling off the bone. I, um, ate a lot of that one.

I ate a lot of everything after that, in fact, but I was most interested in seeing how the team reacted during the tasting. Kirsten was a little upset about a croissant being used by the LA kitchen. It was apparently bigger than what they use in most places so there wasn’t enough chicken to fill it.

Everything is measured out carefully and there’s even a scale at the table if she thinks something is off. She also focused on the bread for the Italian baguette. It wasn’t quite what she wanted it to be.

The process of trying to get food to be somewhat standardized throughout an airline’s route network is daunting, because you can’t source everything the same in every city. But every cart on the airplane has a card that shows in color what each dish should look like when given to the traveler. That helps the flight attendants with standardization, but you can never guarantee perfection.

It sounds like nothing is quite as difficult as the Hawaiian Islands. In Lihue, most airlines just cater on the mainland for the roundtrip, so there weren’t any real catering options. Alaska found a local restaurant, bought a trailer, and has that company do the catering for the flights from Lihue.

In the end, I walked away with a real appreciation for how much effort goes into the food experience from the airline perspective. Now that Alaska has been able to successfully create a buy on board program with fresh food, it has the ability to invest even more into the program.

 
There are just so many interesting things to see in this chart. Here are my random thoughts.

• Look at how much money Alaska spent on food in the early 1990s. That’s crazy for an airline that’s mostly short to medium haul flying. Obviously, they changed that significantly in 1993 and now they’re in the bottom half of the pack.
• United and American have been going in lockstep, as you might expect. They hit their peak on food spend in 2001 and then, completely unsurprisingly, tanked from there.
• You can really chart Continental’s success here. The airline dramatically slashed food in the early 1990s in its bid to survive. When Gordon Bethune took over and started investing in the product, food spend started to rise and it’s stayed there. Obviously, this number will start to plunge now that Continental has trashed free food in coach. Interesting that the spend is still less on Continental than United. I wonder if First Class has something to do with that?
• Look at Northwest’s climb at the end of its life. That’s the Delta influence there, but both airlines have stepped up their spending. Much of that is likely related to the airline’s strong, fresh food buy-on-board program.
• US Airways has always been near the bottom, but much of that may be because it has a much higher percentage of domestic flights than the other legacies. You can see the fight for survival after 9/11. Food spend dropped, but you can also see that food at America West started to rise a little after the merger. Now they’ve found equilibrium at a very low level.
• The most steady spender on food? Southwest, of course. Those peanuts are cheap.

Fun chart, huh? Too bad we can’t map this to revenue from food sales, but that info isn’t given to the feds.

Yep, there were some decent things in there, but honestly, anything I tasted after that sugary pretzel dip was written in a haze.

Was I too harsh on JetBlue last week? If they weren’t JetBlue yes, but since they are JetBlue, no. I think most of us have come to expect more from the airline and this offering is more worthy of one of the other guys that everyone likes to beat up. I had my hopes up that they would come up with something better when they finally started offering grub. Maybe they’ll get there eventually.

Maybe I should blame humanity rather than JetBlue. After all, people are buying this crap, and if they weren’t, JetBlue wouldn’t be selling it. Regardless, I really hope that JetBlue comes up with something better.

They can keep that pretzel dip though.

Let’s make one thing clear. The ample selection and large variety of snacks will stay. That’s not changing at all. But there are some people who want something more substantial, so that’s the point of these meals, which cost $6 a piece and are available on A320 flights of over 3 hours and 45 minutes. You would think that an airline like JetBlue would go with something different and exciting, but you’d be wrong. They’ve gone with shelf-stable crap.

There are five different “meals” and only two (maybe one and a half) look even remotely healthy. Even those aren’t exactly appealing. Here’s my list, in order, of the ones that I’d be tempted to try.

Shape Up
This is what they’ve decided passes for something healthy. It includes pita chips, hummus, raisins, almonds, fruit crisps, and snack mix. Is this healthy? Somewhat, but I’d imagine that some of this stuff is, as a friend calls it, “salty death mix” with a healthy look and feel. I’d rather stick with the free cashews, blue chips, fruit crisps, and cookies that they’ll still hand out.

Cheer Up
They have wine on board, so why not have fruit and cheese as well? Delta actually does a good job with that, but then again, they actually have fresh fruit and tasty cheese. JetBlue is going with dried fruit and what I assume to be shelf-stable Swiss, Smoked Cheddar, and Hot Pepper. Not exactly inspiring at all.

Power Up
After the Cheer Up package, this drops off a cliff pretty quickly. Power Up has chips and salsa, some beef jerky, and some pretzels with dip. If they serve this, they better have that drink service going nonstop, because the salt in these will make you thirstier than a ramp agent in Phoenix in July.

Wake Up
For those who want breakfast, you can pretend by ordering this drek. Yep, a croissant in a bag served with jam and butter alongside a Dole fruit cup, chocolate milk, and . . . Cheez-Its? Who decided Cheez-Its were breakfast food? This one is enough to make you ill.

Beef Up
The clear winner (loser?) in the race for the worst meal is this one. Start with what we used to call “funny salami” as a kid (that stuff that would outlast Twinkies in a nuclear blast), add in some crackers and bagel chips, and finish it off with two types of cheese “spread” and some fruit crisps to give it the appearance of being healthy and you’ve got nastiness. I remember when Southwest used to give out something like this on their long hauls, but they’ve stopped, I believe. Probably because it’s awful.

So, really JetBlue? Is the best you can do? I know that people like crap, but you guys don’t usually seem to stoop to this level. I’ll be curious to see if enough people pay for this to make it worthwhile. I certainly won’t.

A friend of mine works at Amazing Food Creations (AFC) outside Chicago, so when I mentioned I’d be in town, we decided to set up a visit. AFC provides food to a couple of the largest airlines in the world. They put together everything from coach to first class, and they do domestic and international. They don’t do buy-on-board food just yet, but they’d like to get in the game.

So how come you’ve never heard of AFC even though you’ve likely had their food? It’s because there are an unbelievable number of middlemen involved in the process, so you’re pretty far removed from these guys.

I had the chance to sit with co-founder Dari Carré (pictured) to learn exactly how the process works. It’s nuts.

Complicated enough for you? Let me explain those numbers and hope I took accurate notes. I’ll use AFC as an example.

1. First, the airlines figure out what they need and put it out in a spec sheet that also shows the pricepoint per meal. That info is distributed.

   Then AFC and other food manufacturers prepare a presentation for them with prototype meals that are made in their test kitchens (at right). Sometimes, manufacturers deal with brokers to get their food onboard while other times, they just deal directly.

   Every airline has different requirements. AFC wouldn’t use any current names, but they said that Northwest wanted traditional, American meals with a bland flavor palette to appeal to its customers. Other airlines want something a little spicier and more exotic.

   Let’s say the airline likes what AFC has to offer. They’ll probably go back and forth for awhile until they get exactly what they want. Finally, a contract will be awarded. It’s usually 12 to 24 months in length.

2. Once AFC wins the bid, they have to figure out how to turn the prototype meal into a full production meal. That can require small or large tweaks to make sure the product is consistently good when it’s mass-produced.
3. AFC does all their manufacturing in their suburban Chicago facility. From there, a distributor comes to pick up the grub and distribute it. AFC provides food to airlines throughout the US and Canada, so multiple distributors will end up being used.
4. The distributor will take the food to the caterer in each airport location. These caterers are the ones you may know – GateGourmet, LSG Sky Chefs, etc. AFC only makes entrees, so these guys take them and add the salad, dinner roll, trays, condiments, etc. They then put it on the plane.
5. Lastly, finally, the flight attendant brings the meal to you and you shove it in your mouth.

 
Insane, right? I couldn’t believe it. It seems like there’s a lot of opportunity for the caterers to start taking over more of these roles so that you only need the airline, the caterer, and the food manufacturer.

It can get even more difficult than this. Airlines will sometimes contract with celebrity chefs to do meals. You might remember, for example, when Charlie Trotter partnered with United for meals. Well, when this happens, the company and the chef spend a great deal of time putting together meals that are true to the chef but also will hold up well on the plane. For example, you want to cut vegetables a certain way so that they prepare correctly onboard.

After all this, we headed to the test kitchen for a little bit of taste-testing. The chef and co-founder, Dari’s husband Eric Carré, creates food with several other chefs. These guys absolutely love doing this. It’s really funny to see someone put so much into airplane food, but it’s also pretty refreshing to know that there are people who are trying.

They brought out a spread of food for me to try ranging from the surprisingly delicious vegan 7-grain pilaf with fruit compote and sweet bulger wheat (left) to the just awesome mandarin orange chicken (right) which is served in First Class.

It was really interesting to see how the vegetables reacted to cooking. The meals are supposed to be heated in a convection oven on a plane, but they used a microwave because of our time constraints. The broccoli was soggy, and Chef Eric (as everyone called him) explained that the way they prepared it meant it was overcooked in a microwave but it would be in good shape on the airplane.

While AFC is doing traditional meals for now, they’re also looking at the buy-on-board world. They have a frozen meal that actually steam cooks in a bag (with Dari at top and at right). I tried them and they were really good, especially the Cuban veggies. Maybe one day you’ll be able to get it onboard.

Thanks to everyone at Amazing Food Creations for spending the afternoon with me. If you’d like to try their steam-cooked meals, head to Whole Foods where they sell them under the French Meadow name.

On the one hand, people always liked that Continental stood their ground and kept at least SOMETHING in the back of the bus that reminded people of the old days. Was the free meal anything special? No way. It was edible at best, though I did have a soft spot for that cheeseburger in a bag. (Do they still have that?) But even if you didn’t like it, it was comfort food, and that was nice. There was also something psychologically-appealing about them seeming to care enough for you to keep food around, even if it was crappy. It just seemed like the last vestige of civility. Former CEO Gordon Bethune summed it up well with his thoughts after 9/11.

Our reaction was to be ourselves more than we ever were. Didn’t take away the movies, didn’t take away the blankets and pillows, didn’t take off the magazines. We talked about this a lot, and I said, ‘Look, guys, if ever we were consistent and reliable, we have to be now. You have to be steady when the fucking sky is the shakiest. We’ve got to be clean, safe, and reliable, and let everybody know it. That’s all we got. That’s our edge in the business.’

Now Continental is chipping away at that as well.

But don’t worry, Continental is happy to spin this announcement so you think it’s some amazing revolution on their part. It wasn’t quite Cranky Jackass-worthy, but still kind of dumb. The release reads “Continental Airlines to Offer Food for Purchase on Select Flights” with a subhead of “Menu will include wide variety of high quality, healthy food choices.” So the spin is basically, yeah we might be getting rid of free food, but we’re replacing it with delicious, healthy, wholesome food that will make you think you’re at a five star restaurant . . . or something like that.

The way it works is this. You will now get a free meal only on flights over 6 hours in length. That’s an interesting cutoff. The 1p flight from Newark to LAX is blocked at 5h56m on Saturday and 6h6m the rest of the week. So will the folks on Saturday not get fed? And no eastbound flight from LA gets even close to 6 hours, so will that mean you only get fed westbound? Either way, only the longest domestic routes will get grub included in the price of the ticket.

I’m sure the food will be better, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have offered both options. That’s what Hawaiian does. They offer a basic meal for free and then you can buy some really high quality stuff if you’d like to trade up. But Continental hasn’t gone that route. I figured they’d be the last to hold out, thanks to their ownership of Chelsea Food Services, the kitchen that puts these meals together. But I guess even that couldn’t sway them to keep feeding people for free.

It’s not the elimination of free meals that really bugs me but rather that Continental is now falling into the same place as everyone else. The free meal was this signal of respect, or something like that. It showed they cared just a little bit more than the rest. Not anymore.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/projector/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

In a world where airlines gladly charge for anything they can, US Airways surprisingly went it alone on this drink charge. No other major airline followed the lead to charge for soda and water. The airline resisted changing back despite all the criticism . . . until now. In the words of CEO Doug Parker:

We know customers don’t buy an airline ticket based on whether or not they will get a free soda onboard, but with US Airways being the only large network carrier to charge for drinks, we are at a disadvantage. More importantly, this difference in our service has become a focal point that detracts from all of the outstanding improvements in on-time performance and baggage handling that all of us have worked so hard to achieve over the past year.

This really is a big change, despite what they’re saying. It was just last September that the airline explained how happy it was with the change. President Scott Kirby went so far as to say that the flight attendants would “riot” if they went back to the old way. Talk about a change of direction, huh?

It appears that the airlines reputation and high level of consumer complaints have caused the about-face. US Airways has made excellent strides with its on-time performance lately, and overall reliability has been quite good, yet the airline still ranks toward the bottom of the list when it comes to complaints. In December, for example, US Airways had the second best on-time performance behind perennial leader Hawaiian Airlines. The airline canceled only 2.1% of flights in the very difficult month (poor weather) and reported fewer mishandled bags than the industry average. But when it comes to complaints, the airline finished next to last, just ahead of cellar-dweller United. So what’s going on?

At last year’s media day, the management claimed that they needed to focus on reliability, appearance, and convenience. Apparently, management has now realized that it’s not enough. They actually need to do more than that to keep people happy. They must have been receiving a fair number of complaints about charging for water and soda, so they relented. They’ll lose some money on this, but people will be happier. And that has now strangely become important to them. What a pleasant surprise.

They are also looking to address other sore spots. Instead of just being happy with a strong on time performance, they’ve actually decided they need to tell people about it. This is an airline that has really avoided brand advertising for years. But now they are actually finding some value in it, and they’re promoting their on time performance in several different types of media.

It’s a very interesting move for an airline that had been moving to a true a la carte model and had not put stock in brand advertising for many years. Personally, I would have thought that simply not charging for water would have been plenty. As long as people can get something to drink, they’ll be fine. But US Airways has decided to remove the charges from soda, coffee, and tea as well in order to boost the airline’s image. It will be interesting to see if the consumer complaint number starts to drop after this move.