Self catering flights
Why customers are taking on board their own food? How to cope with the situation?
Another curious aspect that I noticed during my freelance flights after Covid is that people tend to bring their own catering on board.
Because of rigorous anti Covid procedure, or because of money savings, when you see you have a booked flight and is expressly mentioned “no catering needed”, rest assure they might show up with a number of cool bags full of food.
During lock down was in fact a procedure: Operators were not allowed to serve food on board.
Nowadays, seems like this trend is still pretty actual.
Having a catering delivered together with the passenger, that you are completely unaware about, is actually a problem.
First of all, for the safety of the crew members, you don’t know where this catering is coming from, therefore if has been sanitised or the equipment used to prepare it has been properly sanitised.
Very unlikely the food has been processed into a professional kitchen where the most rigorous rule for hygiene and sanitation are followed.
Second, if it is home made or taken from a restaurant, for sure the packaging is not suitable for the small spaces of an aircraft.
This means that you will have to find a place for all the rubbish and is not always easy. And don’t forget all the likings in the galley cupboards!
Third, because the catering is coming with the passengers and you don’t know what’s that, you don’t have time to prepare yourself in advance.
For sure, in this situation a lot more of flexibility that usual is needed.
What you can do after the flight, try to make a feedback as son as you land, highlighting the fact that self catering flights are not safe, not easy and customers should be refrained to bring their own food on board.
If you found yourself to face a “self catering flight”, I would be happy to learn how you managed and how you find it!