Airline food

United starts pouring illy coffee on July 1.

United coffee art

You can stop saying “No, thank-you” when flight attendants on United Airlines flights come around offering coffee.

That’s because starting Friday, July 1, the carrier will start serving a specially chosen dark roast coffee from famed Italian coffee roaster illy on all flights.

“We acted on customer feedback and are delivering a product our employees are proud to serve, while bringing excellence and passion to every one of the 72 million cups of coffee we serve inflight every year,” said Jimmy Samartzis, United’s vice president of Food Services and United Clubs in a statement.

After merging with Continental Airlines, United had stopped serving Starbucks brand coffee in favor of the brand Continental had been serving. Customers noticed.

To fix that, United went all out – sending Illy coffee experts and caffeine-conscious employees into airports and onto flights to do taste testing and gather feedback on which coffee blend might be the best replacement – and the dark roast blend “won.”

United began serving the illy coffee in its United Club locations in December, 2015. Now that illy has had time to ramp up a special production line to make enough pillow-packs to supply United with the 50 tons of coffee it needs monthly, United passengers will be getting the better brew too.

United was really serious about this coffee switch and back in April, sent a team of key personnel to illy’s intensive University of Coffee at the Culinary Institute of America’s campus in St. Helena, Calif., where they learned about growing, roasting and preparing great coffee.

United team wiht their cups

I got to go along and wrote a piece for USA TODAY about the experience – and about United’s goals in making the switch.

You can read those stories here and here.

Coffee University_United's Jeffrey Pelch conducts taste test at illy University of Coffee in March 2016

United adds Garrett Popcorn to the menu

If you’re a big fan of popcorn in any form and trying out locally-themed treats on the road, then you’ll be pleased to learn that United Airlines has added snack-sized bags of Garrett Popcorn to its by-on-board menu.

United Garrett Popcorn_edited

If you’ve ever traveled through Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, you’ve seen – and perhaps bought a bag, or three, of Garrett Popcorn.

And then gone back for more.

Now, if you don’t have time to buy the popcorn at the airport, you can buy a small bag of Garrett Mix -(CheeseCorn and CaramelCrisp) on flights longer than two hours. Price. $3.99

United is also adding a kid-friendly snack box to its by-on-board menu. The Ben Flyin Snack Box will have a turkey stick, animal crackers, apple sauce, a game (Wikki Stix) – but no popcorn.

Help fund a film about airline food

Singapore food testing

If you’ve ever been curious about the food offered to passengers on planes, you may be interested in throwing in a few bucks to help out the folks over at inflightfeed, who not only love eating and reviewing airplane food, they’re got a Kickstarter campaign going to fund a film on the topic.

Their goal: $74,049.

So far, just over $2000 has been raised. But they’re early in the process and, well, who wouldn’t want to see what inflightfeed founder Nikos Loukas describe as “a very cool airline food documentary around the globe about Qantas, Air France, Turkish, Cathay, Air Baltic plus quite a few more airlines.”

The project sounds tasty: “We will have wine tastings, food tastings, and first class cabin mock up experiences,” said Loukas.

As Kickstarter projects go, there’s a long list of perks being offered for folks who pledge at various levels, including the opportunity to be a taste tester on the set.

Yum!

Delta Air Lines coffee cup contest

DELTA CUP CONTEST

Good coffee is important on the ground and in the air. So it’s good news that Delta Air Lines has decided to join with some other airlines, including Alaska Airlines, in serving Starbucks coffee on flights.

To celebrate the airline is having a coffee cup contest. To enter, write where you want to go on a cup and share a photo of it on line at Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #DeltaCupContest.

Do that by midnight eastern time on February 8, 2015 to be eligible for a drawing for a free flight on Monday, January 9. The prize: an economy ticket for one anywhere Delta flies.

Snack Saturday: Free Currywurst during World Cup

AIRBERLIN CURRYWURST

Germany faces Brazil in the World Cup finals on Tuesday and, as I learned during my visit to airberlin headquarters in Berlin recently, that means free currywurst for passengers on airberlin flights during the game.

Currywurst, a popular fast food dish in Germany that consists of whole or sliced pork sausage topped by a mixture of ketchup and curry powder, is one of the more popular buy-on-board options airberlin offers on its menu of dishes prepared for the airline by the Sansibar restaurant. The on-board version usually sells for about $9 (6.90 euros) and is sliced, made from veal and pork and served with a spicy curry sauce, a packet of extra-strong curry powder, a roll and, as is tradition, a wooden fork.

airberlin pilots have been announcing the results of World Cup matches that take place during flights and offering half-time scores for matches involving Germany. The free curry-wurst is served on all German domestic flights between 5 pm and 8 pm on the days when the German team is playing.