Lufthansa Flight Attendants Aggravated, Need Particular Meals To Price Further

As reported by aeroTELEGRAPH, Lufthansa flight attendants are annoyed by the quantity of particular meals that passengers are ordering, and are demanding that one thing be achieved to deal with this. That is an attention-grabbing subject, as I’m positive Lufthansa flight attendants aren’t the one ones with this problem.

Why Lufthansa flight attendants have points with particular meals

On lengthy haul worldwide flights with meal companies, it’s regular for airways to allow you to pre-order a particular meal. That is meant primarily for these with dietary or spiritual restrictions, although anybody can organize them.

In the case of Lufthansa, there are 11 completely different particular meals to select from, starting from meals based mostly on dietary restrictions (gluten free, low ldl cholesterol, low sodium, and so on.) to meals based mostly on faith (Kosher, Hindu, Muslim, and so on.).

The difficulty is that crews have seen a pointy enhance within the variety of passengers ordering particular meals over time, and this considerably complicates the service movement:

• Lufthansa crews are repeatedly seeing 100 particular meals ordered per flight, with some flights seeing as much as 190 particular meals ordered
• At most airways (together with Lufthansa), particular meals are introduced out first, after which the primary meal service is carried out; nevertheless, when you may have 100+ particular meals, this causes points, and delays the service for different passengers
• Lufthansa reportedly doesn’t label every particular meal with the seat quantity and title of the passenger, so the logistics are difficult, as crews have fairly the method by which they must ship these

I can fully perceive the frustration amongst flight attendants right here. It’s one factor if 5 individuals are ordering a particular meal, however when half the cabin is ordering a particular meal, it’s a problem for the crew. And it’s not simply a difficulty of it being an excessive amount of work for the crew, however it makes it onerous to handle expectations of different visitors, since this quantity of particular meals delays the service for different passengers.

What’s the answer to this particular meal downside?

A flight attendant consultant has defined that this problem was first mentioned with administration again in 2017, however no corrective measures have been taken, and the problem has solely turn out to be worse.

The flight attendant consultant makes a number of proposals, although they largely appear form of half-baked. These embody limiting the variety of particular meals per flight, limiting the number of particular meals, and even charging further for particular meals. The hope is that if the airline charged further for particular meals, fewer individuals would organize them.

Sadly I’m undecided these solutions are actually possible. Lufthansa charging further for particular meals would virtually actually not go over properly, and can be seen as spiritual or dietary discrimination. Moreover, there’s no method you may quiz individuals, or choose in the event that they actually “want” a particular meal or not.

It looks as if a couple of sensible issues that might change would come with the next:

• Every particular meal may very well be labeled with the seat quantity and passenger title, in order that there’s much less of a guessing sport to determining which particular meal belongs to which passenger
• Lufthansa may lower the variety of particular meals to select from, to simplify the method of delivering these meals to passengers
• Particular meals may simply be loaded onto the identical carts because the common meals, in order that there’s now not a bonus to getting your meal earlier, and in order that different passengers aren’t stored ready; nevertheless, this will likely solely complicate logistics

In response to this, a Lufthansa spokesperson acknowledged that “the vary of particular meals and the related on-board service processes, like different product and repair matters, are repeatedly examined and additional developed.”

Backside line

Lufthansa flight attendants are complaining that they’ve gotten to the purpose the place the variety of particular meals ordered will get in the way in which of the service movement. When as much as half of the economic system cabin is ordering particular meals, it may be robust to ship these meals with out neglecting different passengers.

Sadly I concern this can be a downside the place there won’t be a terrific answer, so I’m curious how this performs out…

What do you make of this logistical problem?