American is expanding its coach food for sale offerings, which is long overdue. I wrote back in early March that a revamp of their buy on board program was coming.
The airline announced today the addition to Socorro Tequila onboard starting June 1, and new snack baskets starting June 11 (in addition to a separate midday basket in addition to the morning and afternoon baskets).
But what I’m most interested in is the June 1 expansion of buy on board items.
- Food for sale will be available on flights over 1,100 miles – rather than the current 1,300 miles.
- New items on offer will be steak and pimento cheese sandwich, tray table tapas (olives, dried apricots, beef jerky, pistachio, white cheddar dip, pita chips and brownie brittle) and beef jerky.
- These do not replace existing offers. They are additions to the fruit and cheese tray, Tostitos Snack Box and Doritos Cool Ranch Minis.
Though discussions around premium usually center on premium cabins, most passengers fly coach. There isn’t as much margin to play with in economy, but attention to detail and thoughtful investment goes a long way towards making the experience feel more personal and human.
Decent buy on board options could make American’s coach product much more attractive. You don’t always have time to stop in the terminal for food when running between flights. Having food on offer helps make you feel taken care of. The flight no longer has the sense of a post-apocalyptic society where shortages prevail, turning it into one where there’s abundance – even if you don’t buy, you don’t have to worry about getting hungry and having nowhere to turn.
It remains to be seen how these items taste and what quantity actually gets boarded. And it’s still not competitive with what other airlines offer:
- United offers food for sale on 500 mile flights as well as hot and cold meals on flights over 1,190 miles (e.g. bagel breakfast melt; breakfastacos; burger; chicken parm sandwich).
- Delta offers food for sale on 900 mile flights.
- Meanwhile Alaska has food for sale on 775 mile flights, more robust offerings on 1,100 mile flights, and allows passengers to pre-reserve their items for purchase. American, too, had pre-order meals in coach in 2018 and 2019.
However it’s a real step in the right direction. And also a boon for Executive Platinum and ConciergeKey members flying in economy. Their benefit of a free snack item from the buy onboard menu hasn’t meant much when there hasn’t been anything on the menu. Changing that will improve the experience for the airline’s most frequent customers.
Ultimately, if this is all they do with buy on board, it’ll be a huge disappointment. But if this is the first step towards a more robust offering on more flights, that’ll go a long way towards improving the travel experience.
The airline seems to be ticking through some quick wins, addressing low hanging fruit items – from not demanding collection of business class headphones an hour prior to landing, to free wifi coming soon. But most things have been in the pipeline for awhile, not least of which are the new Philadelphia Flagship lounge and new business class suites.
There’s a lot of work to be done – like reversing the gutting of same day flight changes (which haven’t been as flexible as United or Delta’s policies since US Airways management took over). I’d love few things more than to see American make it happen.
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