United Airlines is adding a pre-arrival snack to select transcontinental and other competitive domestic routes as it seeks to better compete against its peers in terms of onboard premium cabin catering.

New Warm Pre-Arrival Snack On United Airlines Competitive Longer Flights

Last autumn, United began offering a substantial pre-arrival meal on its premium transcontinental routes between Newark (EWR) and Los Angeles (LAX) / San Francisco (SFO). That included a three-course meal with a salad, main course like pasta or crab cakes, and a side of fruit. Considering both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines only offer a cookie to arriving business class passengers on these routes and JetBlue only offers a packet of chocolate-covered walnuts, this actually pushed United ahead of its peers (at least in terms of quantity).

This month, United is expanding its pre-arrival service in a way I cannot ever historically recall in my 20 years of regularly flying on the carrier, with a hot snack prior to landing on competitive transcontinental routes. While there won’t be a three-course meal like on premium transcon flights, a warmed apricot cinnamon roll will be served on flights that arrive before 9:59 am and pizza Margherita will be offered for the arrival snack on later arriving flights.

Interestingly, it isn’t clear why some routes receive this and others do not, though I’d pin on competitive pressures on a route. For example, flying between San Francisco and Washington (IAD) or Boston (BOS) you will be served the pre-arrival meal, but flying between San Francisco and Pittsburgh (PIT) or Orlando (MCO) you will not.

If you’re flying between Atlanta (ATL) and San Francisco, you will be served a pre-arrival snack, but between Tampa (TPA) and San Francisco, there is no pre-arrival snack.

You can check the menu of your specific flight on united.com or the United app (under flight status).

CONCLUSION

United Airlines is now offering a warm snack prior to arrival on key coast-to-coast flights.

Ultimately, I’d like to think I would pass on these carb-bombs anyway…but I think it’s great that United continues to invest in its onboard cuisine and also interesting that only some transcon routes benefit from this higher level of service.

images: United Airlines