There’s a strange reason that American Airlines serves meals in first class between Chicago O’Hare and Denver.
- American’s standard policy is to serve meals in first class at meal times on 900 mile flights or longer.
Snack basket on flights 500-899 miles during meal times
Meal service on flights over 900 miles during meal times - Before the pandemic there were ‘exception markets’ that were shorter, like Chicago O’Hare to Washington National airport and New York LaGuardia, that got meals up front. These were considered premium business routes, with greater revenue potential and were highly competitive.
- However, there are officially no more ‘exception markets’.
- Yet Chicago O’Hare – Denver is 888 miles but still gets a meal!
How is it possible to square the circle of (1) no meals on flights under 900 miles, (2) no exceptions, (3) one flight under 900 miles receives a meal?
I had heard that the reason was American Airlines still treats Denver as being located at the old Stapleton airport, which is 901 miles from Chicago O’Hare. Stapleton International Airport in Denver closed on February 27, 1995.
An American spokesperson confirms this,
ORD-DEN isn’t an exception market as the mileage is over 900 miles. This is based off the mileage to the original DEN airport, as you mentioned.
I suspect that, in fact, since Chicago O’Hare and Denver are United hubs (this is a ‘hub to hub’ route) it’s as much about competition as it is an artifact of a highly outdated route calculation. American is ‘choosing’ not to fix this anomaly.
At a minimum, if in some sense this is a convenient fiction, it allows American to provide meals on another route without opening the floodgates of more exception markets and case-by-case distinctions, and that may benefit customers.