United: OK, the Food Stays

Posted by: Justin Bachman on September 02

Who says an airline won’t listen these days? United (UAUA) is reversing a decision to end complimentary hot-meal service on European flights from its Washington hub, following a storm of criticism.

“The response from you and many of our corporate customers, even before we launched the test, told us what we would have undoubtedly learned had we proceeded – you value our hot meal service in economy class for international flights,” United’s chief customer officer, Graham Atkinson, said in a Sept. 2 statement. (I would submit that ‘value’ may be too strong a word here. More likely it is just that removal of hot food en route to Europe is seen as taking the service degradation too far, even for the current era.) “In this environment, where higher costs driven by volatile fuel prices are now the norm, we must continue to tailor products and services so that we provide you with choices and competitive fares. As such, we will continue to be proactive in testing new ideas.”

So, expect the service erosion to continue in more modest ways. But it’s somewhat heartening to see that this step was too draconian to pass. I suspect that large United accounts – the metro D.C. area is full of defense and tech-related firms that fly lots of people across the Atlantic – rapidly noted how their people would likely enjoy the coach experience on Air France, Lufthansa, Virgin, British Airways, etc. That, of course, is a prospect United did not want to test just by saving a few bucks on warm food.