Domestic Crew Meals
 

Serious question here:

Does anyone find that consuming domestic crew meals results in not necessarily a total blowing of a $ $, but often a reduced level of gastrointestinal calm?

I am starting to have questions about either cleanliness, storage, or freshness of crew meal contents (or, more likely, a combination of all factors).

Prior to COVID, all we got was a snack box. Unless you were going international or trips to the west coast. So I'll take the crew meals domestically for as long as they provide them, over the snack box.

Bottom line, if it doesn't look fresh don't eat it. Bring cliff bars just in case.

LOL. I was just telling my FO the other day, the pilots hired since COVID are in for a rude awakening when the company stops catering every flight. That’s all they know.

But I agree with the OP. First the catering is extremely unhealthy. Any salad or fresh food is either not included or is of a small portion. Second, eating the catering is like eating a box of colon blow.

You actually eat that food? Those boxes are such a waste of money. The breakfast meal and snack box is a joke and disgusting. Cereal and yogurt is all that is edible.

Speaking of Covid era stuff, how much longer until the company goes back to reducing travel banks? It’s surprising they haven’t reverted already.

It sounds like it is still tough to move people around internationally, so hopefully it will be awhile before they pull out of the MOU. I hope we can get some fo that MOU codified into the next contract.

Call me crazy, but I miss the snack boxes.

Do you miss the cat food or the 4 days worth of sugar?

I enjoy when we don't get catered and I get $25 tax free to go buy a nice salad.

Although there is no requirement to provide a meal, I feel that there is an inherent responsibility to provide a clean, safe meal if one chooses to provide a meal.

That travel MOU benefits the company way more than the pilots right now. They’ll keep that going as long as we let them.

The current domestic catering is a lot like going to my in-laws at the holidays.

a gift I dont really want but still have to act enthusiastic about because they’re trying.

And it's a gift that keeps on giving.

If the MEC wants to show some resolve, the should give the 7 day notice for the MOU.

They need it more than we do.

Interesting. Y’all are expected to bring your own chow for long haul flights? .

No, anything over 5:30 hours of duty has a “snack”. Anything over 7:30 of duty has a “meal”. Under 5:30 gets a mini-snack.

Due to Covid, they have been catering all flights with a “meal” regardless of duty time.


Long haul gets multiple meals.

gotcha. Thx.

How? Without the agreement all those trips departing to or from countries who had no DHD options, or overly restrictive quarantine requirements, would be removed from the bid pack. This would substantially reduce the amount of lines and turn many more into reserves. This is what they did in HKG the month prior to this agreement. We are also getting 100% of deviation bank which is a huge step forward. The rental car use is also a huge advancement and I have used it numerous times.

You may want to read the business necessity JS language.

"In individual cases of business necessity......"

While there are some great benefits of the MOU, it obviously benefits the company way more than it benefits the pilots. You have 777/MD pilots that have $100,000 + in their deadhead banks that they're never going to use along with the fact that this gives the company way too much discretion and flexibility. Think of how much money the company is saving right now with these unused deadhead banks. We'll probably get a contract with pay raises that the company is paying for with our own unused deadhead money.

Haha- not the cat food. Got me there. I’ll argue the meals have enough carbs (sugar) for several days of human consumption. Take breakfast- cereal, milk, yogurt, fruit, sugar bar, bread. At least the snack boxes have less quantity- sometimes you’d get healthier options like veggie packs, rx bars, hummus, etc. They weren’t all winners, but I’d argue healthier than the meals we get.