The last time I flew this year was back in early February. Feels like forever ago, so let’s look through some old photos and reminisce a little...
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Overview
US airlines are generally pretty stingy on domestic routes. In economy, you usually only get a free full meal on certain Hawaii Route / transcontinental Premium Route / Hub Route flights, such as ATL-HNL, LAX-JFK, and SFO-EWR. Otherwise, it’s typically just free drinks and a small snack. Compared with many Asian airlines, it’s really night and day.
For me, Alaska Airlines is probably the airline whose food I’ve had the most often. Why? A few reasons:
- I fly transcontinental routes a lot
- AS is my top choice for East Coast/West Coast flights because I’m MVP GOLD 75K, so the elite benefits are great and upgrades are possible
- AS food is actually pretty tasty
I’ve also tried meals on AA, UA, and DL. If I had to rank them, I’d say DL>UA>AA, which is pretty consistent with my overall impression of those three airlines.
Every airline has different standards and pricing for inflight meals, such as how long a flight has to be before meals are offered, or whether alcohol is included. This post mainly focuses on Alaska Airlines.
Alaska Airlines Inflight Meals
First, here are the official pages from Alaska Airlines: First Class meals (domestic premium cabin), Economy meals
Alaska only serves hot meals in First Class. In Economy, even paid meals are cold, such as cold sandwiches and the cheese-and-fruit platter, which is actually pretty good.
As for the paid options, one word: expensive
Whether you’re in Economy or First Class, you can pre-order meals from 20 hours up to 3 weeks before departure, and you can change or cancel up to 20 hours before departure. You can do it in either the app or on the website.
If you have MVP Gold status or above, you can ask the flight attendant for a chocolate bar. Don’t abuse it, though, because most flight attendants will check your elite status on their pad before giving you one.
Economy Meals
Departure time 6AM-8PM, flight time over 2 hours
The $8.5 cheese-and-fruit platter: I’ve had it before, and honestly, one grape with one bite of cheese tastes surprisingly sweet and good.
Departure time 6AM-10AM, flight time over 3 hours
Two options: a $9.5 breakfast tray and an $8.5 croissant sandwich (served cold)
Departure time 10AM-8PM, flight time over 3 hours
Three options, all $9.5: a lunch/dinner tray, salad, and a curry chicken wrap (cold). I’ve tried the wrap. It was just okay, and very cold (good thing I use “Cold Ling” toothpaste)...
Other paid and free snacks:
Premium Economy comes with one complimentary snack choice, usually beef jerky or chips. If it were me, I’d definitely pick the beef jerky because that stuff is expensive...
The standard free snack is usually a Lotus Biscoff Cookie, the kind of sweet that really hits you in the face ↓
Paid snacks ↓
Other free and paid drinks:
Water, regular soft drinks, coffee, and juice are all free, and you can get refills.
Alcohol is free in Premium Economy.
Below are the paid options ↓ (beer selections sometimes rotate seasonally, so they’re not fixed)
First Class Meals
Generally speaking, the menu changes about once a month, though I’ve also seen periods where it stayed the same for two months.
You can view the menu in advance and pre-order ahead of time, which is very convenient and saves you from deciding on the spot. I also recommend pre-ordering, because sometimes the option you want gets taken by someone else.
Flights over 675mile departing between 5AM-8PM get hot meals, and red-eye flights after 8PM also get a lighter hot meal.
The warm nuts are a constant.
For the main course, there are usually two choices, or a cheese-and-fruit platter. Lunch and dinner also come with a salad, bread, soup, and drinks. Breakfast usually comes with yogurt, bread, granola maybe, and a smoothie.
Below are sample photos from the official website before hot meals were suspended earlier this year due to the pandemic ↓
Alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks are all complimentary, with options like these ↓
Some Meals I’ve Personally Tried
That’s enough general info—here are some of the meals I actually photographed. Please excuse my photography skills.
First up, the ever-reliable warm nuts, hahaha.
The snack on ANC-DUT: the whole plane was Economy, so everyone got the same thing. Both directions got large juice boxes, which was fairly generous.
RavnAir’s large leather seats were very comfortable.
Breakfast
The main was an omelet + bacon + hash browns. It was fine, just okay.
I really don’t like this super-thick Greek yogurt though. It’s no match for Ambrosial, so I could only eat it with the granola. The granola was good...
Lunch and Dinner
This breakfast main below was really not good. If you can avoid the pork breakfast entree, do it—except for things like bacon and sausage, which are fine.
The pork was dry, and that big white chunk on top was cheese...
Pork chop with Mexican squash + spinach. Good.
AS salads are always very fresh.
The chocolate bar you can request is in the upper right corner.
Chicken breast with fruit glaze and a cheesy egg thing? (Not sure what to call it—I didn’t photograph the menu) + roasted Brussels sprouts + tomato soup
The chicken breast was very tender, and the whole dish had a sweet fruit-glaze flavor. Very good++
Below is braised beef + mashed potatoes + rainbow carrots
The beef was very flavorful. Good++
Sometimes the flight attendants serve the bread, salad, and soup first, then take them away after you finish and bring out the main course. I never figured out the pattern.
This one below is also best avoided...
The main was called Spinach Ricotta Ravioli: ravioli + diced sweet potatoes + kale. I really didn’t like it, though maybe it just wasn’t for me. The sweet potatoes and kale were decent...
Curry rice + kale + orange + some kind of meat I forgot. If I remember correctly, it tasted pretty good+.
Chicken breast + fruit glaze + Brussels sprouts + rice. Good++
Chicken breast + curry rice + kale. Good+
Late-Night Snack
On late-night red-eye flights, the lighter hot meal is usually a small turkey or beef burger plus cream of mushroom soup with corn and chicken broth. Good+
Half a burger... plus tasty tomato soup. Good+
Would it really cost them that much to give a whole one...?
Dessert
Haagen-Dazs.
There’s a very high chance it will be in one of two states: ① so frozen you need a power drill to dig into it ② soft enough to eat with a straw
Final Thoughts
Personally, I think Alaska’s inflight meals are really quite solid!
As for when hot meals will return under the current circumstances, nobody knows yet. But hopefully the pandemic ends soon so we can all get back in the air again.
One extra note: airlines are having a rough time, so once you’re able to use your points, use them sooner rather than later, just in case they get devalued quickly over the next two years.
Alaska has 2 co-branded credit cards with BoA. The welcome bonuses are pretty good, and they’re also churnable, so if you’re interested, you can check them out below: