bjorn14 From Norway, joined Feb 2010, 2776 posts, RR: 2 Posted (3 years 1 week 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 2179 times:
As we have begun to buy most everything associated with our airline ticket (preferred boarding, exit row, baggage fee, etc) online. I was wondering if food and drinks will become an option in the future?
"An idea has to be incredibly absurd to have any reasonable chance of succeeding" --A. Einstein
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21491 posts, RR: 24 Reply 4, posted (3 years 1 week 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 2128 times:
You get a discount of about 20% on AC buy-on-board items if you pre-purchase vouchers on their website. A voucher number appears on your boarding pass which you then present to the flight attendant and the amount prepaid is credited towards your buy-on-board purchase..
egnr From United Kingdom, joined Feb 2004, 503 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (3 years 1 week 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 2079 times:
I flew with Air Asia between Kuala Lumpur and Krabi in 2009, and ordered a chicken biryani online during the ticket buying process. It was a really good curry - one of the best meals I had during my SE Asia holiday that year!
GA330 From United States of America, joined Aug 2007, 107 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (3 years 1 week 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 2011 times:
I do see that this is the trend of the future, some airlines are doing it already. IMHO, there are a few reaons why this is something that many airlines will do.
Cost Savings:
As airlines continue to pinch pennies in order to raise the bottom line, offering BOBs is already what most airlines is doing. By preparing the meals based on pre-flight orders, the airlines can save cost by limiting the possible waste of unbought meals at the end fo the flight.
Revenue Generator:
For some passengers, BOB are acceptable, especially if there are priced reasonably and are of quality. With preflight sales options available, I am sure there would be promotions and sales that will encourage many passengers to buy the food before the flight versus on the flight. As such price will go down, and more pax will be more attracted to buy the BOBs.
Customer Satisfaction - Better food quality:
We all know the general public perception of free airline meals. The problem with providing high quality BOB meals for the airlines is the waste at the end of a flight if the meal is not bought, therefore, as of now many airlines offer simple snackboxes or cold sandwiches or cold meals that can be heated up to be served. Many passengers do not find these options to be worth the money that they are paying and they are not satisfied with these options. If pax can order meals online preflight, airlines can prepare perishable items based on these orders, and pax can have real hot meals which the airlines dont have to worry about throwing away since everyone will buy them has already said so.
Customer Satisfaction - Variety of choices:
Imagine having 20 BOB meals to choose from. Under the current system it will be very hard to achieve since the risk of unbought meals is too great with so many variety of choices. However, with preflight order made available, airlines can offer many choices and only load the ones that pax will go and order. Win-win. The only problem with this is that maybe only airlines hubs' kitchen can offer these kind of service as suppose to the line destination due principle of economics of scale.
Actually many airlines are already doing to-order service on premium classes (F,C). I know among them are CX and BR. I am sure there are many more. There will be systems to be worked out, but I think this might be the way of the future. Air Asia also has preflight BOB sales made available to their pax, and boy looking at those pictures make me want to go eat them already, and to me they are way more inviting than $6 cold turkey sandwich with nothing more than turkey slices, cheese, two leafs of lettuce and a ranch sauce.
bjorn14 From Norway, joined Feb 2010, 2776 posts, RR: 2 Reply 9, posted (3 years 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 1625 times:
Quoting Type-Rated (Reply 8): Now that a lot of airlines have BOB service, can you still order special meals, like Kosher, Vegetarian, Low Sodium?
I bellieve at most legacy carries you still can. I was recently on a TATL CO flight and they were handing out the familiar plastic wrapped special meals to some PAX.
"An idea has to be incredibly absurd to have any reasonable chance of succeeding" --A. Einstein
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