Heyas,

I get the crew meal thing. We had them for years and years at NWA. Here's the cycle:

1) Marketing/Crew Resources builds trips with no time for food.

2) Crews get hungry. They take the time to obtain proper nutrition.

3) Management gets cranked about the delays, and offers meals to crews.

4) Meals start off OK/reliable, then rapidly get crappy and/or undelivered as soon as the delays trickle down.

5) Crew meals bargained away because they mostly suck, and only the most hardy/cheap bothered with them.

The "low fat" breakfasts were my personal favorite. 3 cheerios in a giant bowl, some weird ultra-pasteurized milk type substance from France, a gross sweet roll, and "fruit" that looked like it was imported from the Valley of the Undead. And since the aircraft was catered the night before, all of the above has been baking in IAH summer heat since 9 last night. Bleah.

So, I've seen 3 or 4 iterations of this cycle since 1998.

I agree that proper nutrition is absolutely essential. What I'm not sure of is if crew meals are the answer.

Nu