Food fees hit international travel

Aug 20 - United Airlines is the first U.S. air carrier to take away complimentary meal service to economy passengers on select international flights in a bid to offset fuel costs.On Wall Street......The Dow ended a choppy session with a gain of 68 points to 11,417. The S&P 500 climbed 7 points to 1,274. The Nasdaq rose 4 points to 2,389.

Crude oil rose 45 cents to settle at $114.98 a barrel.

Conway Gittens reports from New York.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Food
• fees
• airlines
• Wall
• street
• Closing
• bell

[cactus743]

I'm glad United Airlines finally listened to its customers and rescinded its decision to take away those meals. If United took away those meals on the very long flights, they would be slaughtered by the international airlines.

[thepod24]

and thats why u should fly international airlines....

[RobinsGoldNow]

I guess there really is no such thing as a "free lunch" anymore! I agree with a previous poster...take your own food!

[Chubsterwoo]

they have to make money

[Redshift21]

London to Sanford Orlando is nine hours, just before you get on board the plane chow down on some hefty food and throw the wrappers in the trash, then at the meal time when everybody else eating break out the "in flight" meal you made and chow down again, nine hours ain't that bad but I would have to think twice about doing it if I was going on a longer flight then eating the airline stuff might make more sense..... just.

[glenwoodfin]

In some ways, with fuel prices, I don't blame the airlines for charging more.

The thing that bothers me is the attitude for service in the United States. I lived in Brazil and they bend over backwards to serve you, but in the states, the service industry looks bothered when you make a request.

Glen Woodfin

[omjeremy]

You have a good point, but for a long international flight, it's hard to bring food for two meals.

[diasimon2003]

it was very bad services!

[Redshift21]

To tell the truth in flight food is so crap that you're better off taking a packed lunch with you, last time I flew to the USA from the UK back in 2005 I made up a meal to take on the flight because I was not gonna pay a £10 extra for their crap food, when it came time to eat a number of people sitting near me commented that they would be doing the same as me next time as they thought my meal looked so much better than what they were having to endure.