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Bringing Fine-Dining Gourmet Food Back to the Sky

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Continental is believed to be the last airline that served complimentary meals on domestic flights. The bad news is such service ended not long ago. Facing tight competitions, many airlines still serve food, but with a fee. Low-cost carriers are cutting service and adding more fees to travelers. The question is who still cares to serve good food on flights.

Lufthansa, a German airline and a Star Alliance member, still does. Today’s NBC News video shows the attention that Lufthansa puts on airline food. With the effort of bringing fine-dining, gourmet food back to the sky, Lufthansa teams up with LSG Sky Chef, an airline catering company, and the chefs in the Ritz Carlton Hotels for menu development. The challenge is how to maintain high quality and tasty airline food even after it goes through the food-chilled/freezed-and-reheat process.

From this video, it is unclear whether Lufthansa will serve gourmet food in first/business class only or in coach as well. However, while almost every airline is cutting costs, will “gourmet food” help Lufthansa gain competitive advantages? In order to compete in today’s market, do you feel a food operation should focus more on cutting costs or maintaining high quality? Why?
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  1. B_A.Johnson195November 6, 2010 at 5:35 PM

    It’s exciting to see that airline food is finally stepping up to something much better than what flight passengers are used to seeing or hearing about foods on airplanes. I think it will earn whatever airline that decides to carry this kind of gourmet food extra points with travelers who are looking to get the best out of a long flight. It will also make travelers pick certain airlines over others because of better services provided. I would even be more willing to go out of my way and look for a flight serving food like what they had shown in the video. This would also provide jobs for chefs who are into making airline food into something better because it will give them the opportunity to come up with new ideas and be innovative with their food. It’s interesting for them in a way because they have to find ways fro the food to keep its great flavor although it has be packaged and shipped on an airplane and served hours later. But a key factor is whether the gourmet food is going to only be for first class flyers. Another factor is if this kind of service will raise airfares for flyers or not.

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