An ex-flight attendant has revealed his top tips for making sure you get a tasty meal when jetting off on long-distance trips.
Justin Barnes, who spent over 12 years working in cabin crew, took to Facebook to share the advice after seeing ‘so many’ complaints about poor airline food.
The ex-flight attendant explained that all aeroplane food is essentially a ready meal that gets reheated in a big oven when on board.
“Airlines have to supply 1000s upon thousands of meals a week. Economy meals are generally made In huge factories in Europe, churning out millions of meals a year as cheaply as possible, frozen and then shipped all over,” he wrote.
“The more premium meals are made in huge big kitchens at the Airports and then chilled so they are a bit ‘fresher’.
“My main point to all this is that your food is never going to be amazing. It may be good sometimes or edible at best, or it may be downright awful, dry and taste like s**t.”
Barnes advised passengers to make sure they pack their own bag full of snacks and drinks in order to keep themselves going throughout their journey.
“So my advice is this. In your hand luggage, pack yourself a ton of snacks, drinks, sweets, and fruit (for God's sake make sure you eat this though!) and whatever else takes your fancy,” he said.
“If you go with this attitude then when you're served up something you don’t like or can’t eat or won’t eat then you won’t go hungry.”
Barnes also took the opportunity to share some of the craziest experiences he had with hungry customers while he was a flight attendant, including asking the crew to just ‘knock up a sandwich,’ or accusing them of ruining the whole holiday because they didn’t get their first choice meal.
“If you follow this advice, you won’t need to scream in the cabin crew members face that you will only eat the chicken and demand that they do something after you’ve been told it’s run out,” he joked.
“You also won’t need to ask crazy questions like have we not just got some chips (yes the fried variety!!) or can we not ‘knock up a sandwich’.”
Barnes said he’d even seen customers demand the crew demand the crew give up their own food or snacks to give to them.
His post has amassed hundreds of comments, with one commenter saying he thought it was “astonishing” that people expect restaurant quality food on an aircraft.
However, others joked that they actually enjoyed the food on board, with one woman commenting “I love airline food! It’s part of the holiday! Maybe I am just strange…”
Do you take your own snacks when you fly? Let us know in the comments!
