Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon Travel

Planet Daily
Iran backs its camels with cash
The government now offers insurance for the valuable beasts.
By J.A. Getzlaff
[05/15/00]

Do not disturb
On a small Nicaraguan island, two strangers and I find paradise. Naked on a pristine beach, I wonder if there's anything wrong with cliché.
By Jason Wilson
[05/13/00]

Planet Daily
Oslo man drives onto runway
A speeding plane misses his car by 10 feet.
By J.A. Getzlaff
[05/12/00]

Wanderlust
As we waft out into the world
Notes from a bar in Thailand: Potential binds us passengers together. Then, at the point of arrival, our camaraderie evaporates.
By Megan McNamer
[05/12/00]

Planet Daily
India opens first superhighway
The six-lane freeway runs from Bombay to Pune.
By J.A. Getzlaff
[05/11/00]

Complete archives for Travel

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

It took less than two weeks for airline management to terminate the captain. Like the special meal he so desperately desired, his 22-year flying career was consumed, digested, flushed down the toilet and forgotten.

Though such reactions are rare, food -- or the lack thereof -- is as volatile an issue for crew members as it is for airline passengers. Some union contracts require that airlines provide on-board meals for pilots. At Delta Airlines, where pilots have no such provision, the company recently announced a voluntary program to spend $3 million to $5 million for cockpit crew meals on flights where food is served.

Flight attendants at most carriers have no such luck: Unless we happen to be working on a long-haul international flight, there's usually no food designated for cabin crew. And during long, multileg flight sequences, when flight attendants are on duty for up to 14 hours and quick connections require sprints from plane to gate to plane to gate, three, four, sometimes five times a day, there simply isn't time to eat on the ground. Often, there's not enough time to stand in line for a takeaway quarter pounder at an airport McDonald's. When time is short and hunger opens a crater in a crew member's stomach, we rely on the old standby: leftover airplane food.

After the passenger meal service has been completed, flight attendants often gather in the first-class galley. We don't just come here to chat, however. When we disappear into the galley, we mean business. Like vultures hovering over the half-eaten corpse of a wildebeest, we lick our beaks, lusting for an appetizer or a dinner roll, hoping to snare some leftover meat -- all the while praying that our comrades are on a diet. If there aren't enough entrees for the entire crew, someone might make a halfhearted offer: "Wanna split this with me?"

"Oh, no, no ... that's OK," a polite, starving colleague might respond. "I'll see if there's any food left in coach." But the good folks at airline catering have gotten much better at matching the number of entrees to the number of passengers. After all, it's the catering company that ends up paying for extra meals. If every passenger decides to eat, and the plane has been stocked with the appropriate number of meals, the main-cabin galley ovens should always end up empty. So will the stomachs of luckless crew members who fail to bring food from home.

Next page | We want you eating lobster