Yesterday, Continental announced that it would no longer be serving free meals in coach, opting instead for buy-on-board options that will launch this fall. To be honest, this move really isn’t really shocking. Other legacy airlines have had no meals in coach for years now, and Continental was the lone holdout, with coach meals at mealtimes.
The airline was trying to advertise the heck out of that fact though – below are two advertisements I saw when in New York this past September. My guess is that Continental came to the conclusion that free meals in coach wasn’t bringing them enough customers from other airlines to make it worth their while.
Non-alcoholic beverages and some snacks (like pretzels) will remain complimentary. The latter still puts Continental ahead of some other carriers. Free meals in economy will still be found on intercontinental flights and domestic flights that are longer than six hours. And of course meals will still be found domestically in the first class cabin.
Continental has said that the offerings will be composed of “high quality, healthy food,” though no specific menu will be announced until the airline gets closer to launch. To be honest, I think the food will be of a good quality. When meals are free, an airline is really looking at controlling costs, which means a cheap product. But when an airline starts selling buy-on-board options, making an appealing product becomes much more important. And airlines have already found that customers will pay for quality. United, for example, saw a large increase in food sales when it unveiled new food options over the summer.
So, yes, it’s a bit disappointing to find that no airlines will serve free meals domestically anymore, but the move isn’t all that surprising, and I think we’ll see a higher quality product now.
Sad to see as it truly marks the end of an era for in-flight service but it is hardly surprising. While Continental loved the tag line “meals at mealtime” they simply weren’t deriving any additional revenue from the campaign. Two years ago they thought they were. A few months ago they noted that it didn’t drive revenue or loyalty but it was a nice touch that the customers appreciated. Ultimately that wasn’t enough.
On the plus side, the OnePass program is still pretty nice for reward redemptions. In a world where differentiation is getting harder and harder to find that seems to be worth something.
As for the food being better, I sure hope so, but I’m not holding my breath. The fact that they own the catering company should help there somewhat though the same was believed for the free coach meals, too.
Technically food in the air service isn’t over, one just has to explicitly pay for it while in coach. Personally I’m happy since it gives me better options.