No Kosher Food with First Class Airline seats?!

[SimonF]

I'm flying from DC to Las Vegas first class, thanks to my girlfriend's luck at a raffle. Our flights have meal service, but apparently on these routes Continental no longer provides special meals, including kosher options. Annoying! Is this common?

[asher13]

Yes unfortunately this is quite common now on domestic flights. AA hasn't offered "special meals" in first class in quite some time.

[BMGRAHAM]

"AA hasn't offered "special meals" in first class in quite some time". Not true. The policy for AA is here http://www.aa.com/i18n/travelInformat.... They still offer special meals on coast to coast flights, and on international flights.

That of course doesn't make it right - it's not right to offer meals in first class, but not for people with special needs that have paid the same for their flight.

[asher13]

Interesting. I knew about kosher meal availability on international but I thought they had discontinued transcon as well for first and biz passengers. Guess not. thanks for the info!

[kosherbizguy]

Not sure I understand you when you say "it's not right to offer meals in first class, but not for people with special needs that have paid the same for their flight". You do realize pretty much everyone pays a different price, right?

If you're in first - at least on AA - you can request a meal as long as it's up to 24 hours. But there are no meals in coach, so if you mean coach people should have the same privilege, it just isn't the way it works. They do have food for purchase (albeit not kosher, at least in terms of the sandwiches and such), or you can bring your own. So they are even handed in treating everyone the same in the classes where you are sitting.

Honestly, the meals are pretty terrible to begin with, so I'd rather bring my own. I especially hate fish, and I get a fish meal often when I get kosher meals, so again, I'd rather just bring something I'd eat.

[DebbyT]

Same experience, except we went from NY, and the 1st class seats left much to be desired as well...waste of frequent flier miles. We brought sushi with us for the flight and ate better than the paying customers!

[avitrek]

Yes. On most domestic flights they no longer offer food period. Continental is one of the few airlines that even offers food on its fights, but they are just a single option, so no special orders. You could get lucky and find that you can eat the packaged food. I was on an early morning Continental flight and the cereal they offered was kosher, but of course you can't count on that.

[tamarw]

Continental isn't always reliable. 60% of the time you'll get Kosher food when you ask for it. 40% of the time, they won't have it at all.

[Prettypoodle]

A while ago (I forget when exactly) several airlines stopped any "special" meals. I belive ti was a "cost cutting meausre". Sorry!
Have a great trip anyway!