Airlines are selling their in-flight meals because apparently people miss them

Apparently there is a strong demographic of people who are so nostalgic for traveling that they are willing to shell out money for in-flight meals.

Airlines are not necessarily known for their cuisine, so much so that there’s an iconic “Saturday Night Live” sketch with Jerry Seinfeld that coined the joke, “What’s the deal with airplane food?” (“Could this stuff taste any worse?”).

Thai Airways was the first to start advertising its meal boxes in April and Cathay Pacific in China and Indonesia’s national airline, Garuda, followed suit.

“It’s served just as if you’re on a flight,” Rubi Haliman told the Guardian. Haliman missed Garuda’s in-flight dinners and has ordered four meals from the catering company so far.

The decline in travel has hit airline companies hard, but also the catering companies who service the flights. GNS Foods, which supplies American Airlines and United first-class sections with snacks, was reportedly left with 50,000 pounds of nuts. Now, people can shop for the nuts online, but the situation points out an overlooked causality of the pandemic — smaller supplier companies. GNS Foods is operated by 20 employees.

Haliman anticipates that travel will continue to be nonexistent until 2021, but he told the Guardian he’s content with eating the meals in the meantime. “The meals taste better from the ground, but it’s not the same as the sensation of eating in the sky,” he said.

Some airlines have started advertising flights to nowhere. Taipei’s Songshan airport allowed hundreds of people to go through the whole check-in process and sit on a plane that never took off.

Do you miss traveling? Read about this LAX employee’s encounters with celebrity travelers.

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