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Remembering the Golden Age of Airline Food

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Re: Remembering the Golden Age of Airline Food

#71

Post by pjmlp »

mcsniff wrote: post #66
pjmlp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am waiting for the day going to the toilet during flight and be faced with a contactless payment terminal to open the door.

After traveling through Europe and seeing the amount of "pay per use" bathrooms, I am torn. On one hand, there are many more public washrooms than in North America, and they are generally much cleaner. On the other hand, paying to basically be a human being feels wrong and I refused to use them. I've used the toilet on a plane maybe 2 times in my life, and I've fly quite a bit, so this probably wouldn't impact me muc…

Usually you will only find those in germanic culture countries, I never got why. I mean the ones inside services like coffees, restaurants,....

There are the single purpose ones in the middle of nowhere or train stations, where payment is an attempt against vandalism.

Everywhere else they tend to be free, and contrary to being on a plane, one can search for an alternative.

Re: Remembering the Golden Age of Airline Food

#72

Post by quacksilver »

keiferski wrote: post #42
leoedin wrote: post #9

When comparing "flying then" to "flying now", you need to look at the real cost of the flights. Yes, the experience in economy class has got worse, but the cost of the ticket has also significantly dropped. In 2021 dollars, the cost of a round trip air fare has basically halved since 1979. You could buy a business class ticket now for a comparable price to economy back then. https://www.airlines.org/dataset/annual-ro…

This is a case where I wish society didn’t optimize for the lowest price and instead made it acceptable to pay more to make the default option more appealing. Yes, you can always pay for business class, but it’s framed as an upgrade, not the baseline standard.

Some countries (like the UK) even have additional taxes on flights that are not the lowest class available. I'm not sure if it is to discourage taking more comfortable travel options or just to scalp people with money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Passenger_Duty

Re: Remembering the Golden Age of Airline Food

#73

Post by kaudinya »

scionthefly wrote: post #53

When it's an option, fly Lufthansa. At least in their transatlantic flights, the food was excellent even though I was in cramped economy class. As I recall I had a type of beef stew, potatoes and carrots, salad, bread rolls, butter, and a nice ice cream for dessert. On domestic flights, I miss Southwest Airlines pre-9/11 snack packs. They had cheese, crackers, cookies, and fruit like apple sauce. Nice pick-me-up in t…

It of course also most likely depends on what kind of food do you like. Imho, Lufthansa food is better than UA or some other equivalent US airliners, but lags significantly behind Qatar airways, Emirates, Thai or even Turkish Airlines.

Re: Remembering the Golden Age of Airline Food

#74

Post by rayiner »

keiferski wrote: post #42
leoedin wrote: post #9

When comparing "flying then" to "flying now", you need to look at the real cost of the flights. Yes, the experience in economy class has got worse, but the cost of the ticket has also significantly dropped. In 2021 dollars, the cost of a round trip air fare has basically halved since 1979. You could buy a business class ticket now for a comparable price to economy back then. https://www.airlines.org/dataset/annual-ro…

This is a case where I wish society didn’t optimize for the lowest price and instead made it acceptable to pay more to make the default option more appealing. Yes, you can always pay for business class, but it’s framed as an upgrade, not the baseline standard.

Except that means that people who fall below the baseline are just cut out. A large swath of the country in the 1950s simply couldn’t fly anywhere.

Re: Remembering the Golden Age of Airline Food

#75

Post by okdood64 »

leoedin wrote: post #9

When comparing "flying then" to "flying now", you need to look at the real cost of the flights. Yes, the experience in economy class has got worse, but the cost of the ticket has also significantly dropped. In 2021 dollars, the cost of a round trip air fare has basically halved since 1979. You could buy a business class ticket now for a comparable price to economy back then. https://www.airlines.org/dataset/annual-ro…

> In 2021 dollars, the cost of a round trip air fare has basically halved since 1979. You could buy a business class ticket now for a comparable price to economy back then.

Business class is generally much more than double economy class right now.

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