United Airlines cancels free meals on transatlantic flights

Passengers travelling aboard United Airlines on transatlantic flights departing from Washington DC’s Dulles Airport can soon bid farewell to free meal service. United is about to gain the dubious reputation of becoming the first airline to cut complimentary meals on long-haul flights, some of which will last well over seven hours. It remains to be seen how passengers will react to the newest and perhaps the most dramatic service cutback initiated by the airline industry. Even discount carriers like Zoom Airlines, Air Transat and Thomsonfly offer complimentary meals on long-haul transatlantic routes and there has been no talk thus far among low-cost carriers of cancelling this service.

United’s decision to cut meals on some transatlantic flights, as well as the scrapping of all business class meals on domestic routes and free light snacks in economy class, appears to have angered frequent fliers. United sent out a memorandum with these changes to its employees, but within 24 hours, the full text version of this memo was posted on commercial aviation sites across the internet. Randy Peterson, who publishes InsideFlyer, argued that around 600 frequent fliers have already added their comment to United’s latest cutback and these contributions have been highly critical of the carrier’s decision, in nearly every case.  Tim Winship, who publishes a site entitled “FrequentFlier,” noted that passengers everywhere are denouncing United’s decision to cut meal service on transatlantic routes and nearly all comments have been “vociferously negative.”

www.united.com