The most common complaint about airline food is not the quality, but the fact that free hot meals are not available on flights over four hours, according to the YouGov Omnibus survey taken March 19 - 21, 2013.
While 42% of Americans want free hot meals on longer flights, the next major criticisms are limited food options (37%), expensive food choices (31%), and the poor quality of the food (24%)
Only a small percentage of airline travelers (7%) buy food on the plane, while nearly one in four (22%) don’t buy any food either at the airport or on the plane.
One in three (31%) bring food onto the plane with them: half of this number (16%) purchase food at the airport to eat on the plane as their main meal, while the others (15%) bring food with them from outside the airport as their main meal. 24% purchase light snacks at the airport to supplement the food served on the plane.
No airline stood out for the quality of their snack food. When asked about snacks on the major airlines 73% either weren’t sure or didn’t think that any of the airlines served the best snacks for purchase. Delta was most often mentioned for the quality of their snacks but only by a low 7%, followed by JetBlue at 4%.
27% believe that airline food has decreased in quality over the past couple of years, 7% think it has improved and 20% believe it is unchanged.
