While the job description of cabin crew has developed considerably over the decades, one of the core responsibilities of the role remains preparing and serving food during flights. Modern aircraft are equipped with better cooking equipment compared to previous decades, but serving food onboard aircraft is still a complex process from start to finish. Interestingly, United Airlines was the first carrier to open a dedicated flight kitchen way back in 1936, situated close by to its San Francisco hub.
This enabled the airline to serve up fresh, hot food during flights, and it paved the way for other airlines to start serving meals during flights. So, just how do the cabin crew manage to provide a hot meal and drinks for the passengers during their flight? This varies considerably - low-cost airlines tend to offer a menu for purchases inflight, while most of the legacy airlines, at least on longer flights, still provide an inclusive inflight meal and drinks service. Pre-flight prep The caterer prepares the food by partially cooking and flash-chilling the meals.
Meals are then transported to the assigned aircraft and loaded either in racks, atlas boxes (metal containers that fit in all aircraft) or carts into the galleys (the kitchens on the aircraft). If the plane is performing a multi-sector flight or there may not be a catering facility at the airport , then extra catering will be loaded for the flight. When the cabin crew arrives at the aircraft, and once all security and safet.