by Jane.PH

Created on: October 07, 2008

Airplane food may not be gourmet or may not be the best meal you could have in a day. But for some reason, that lovely smell wafting through the entire cabin as food is being heated seems to growl passengers' hungry stomach. It could be that the passengers are truly hungry and anything would be nice to eat and line their empty stomach with.

Commonly, there would be two options for a hot meal. However, not everybody is lucky to be given the choice. There are several factors that dictate how lucky you would be to be able to score a good meal on the economy class of a flight.

SEATING POSITION

Food distribution starts from different places depending on how big the plane is and how many flight attendants there are. It doesn't necessarily mean that if you are seated towards the back of the plane that you would be the last to be given a meal. However, being seated at the front middle row would be advantageous. While there is much food on the cart, you would still have a choice between the two main meals. But as the cart goes deeper through the rows, the lesser possibility there would be for you to have a choice of meal.

Although airlines cannot guarantee that you can choose your own seating allocation, it wouldn't hurt to ask the desk officer at check in if you could request for a specific seat. If you are among the first few who checks in for a flight, it would sometimes be likely that you would score a good seat.

GEAR UP AND BRING YOUR OWN

Passengers who are picky with their food should always have something that they can fill their stomach with right inside their bags. In this way, you wouldn't end up with a growling stomach when the food that they will serve is something that you are allergic to or something that you really don't eat. For example, if you are a hard-core vegetarian and in doubt that there would be a completely vegetarian meal on the plane then pack up an already made salad that you know you can easily take out from your bag and eat. Not only would your food be something that you know you would like but you are also certain that it is something that you are not going to have adverse reactions to.

HAVE A COUPLE OF CHANGE READY

If you are flying on budget airlines that doesn't have free in-flight food you have to be ready with some money to buy your food with. This would mean that you have to familiarize yourself with the airline that you are travelling with. Some people don't usually carry with them some money on flights and would just have a credit and debit card on their wallet. If you are unsure of the "food status" of the airline that you are travelling with, it is advisable to give them a call and enquire. If your flight is just one hour it might not hurt to fill your stomach with the bottle of water that they give for free. But if it's more than an hour then you should seriously think of topping up your wallet with a couple extra change.

Airline meals are not the best meals you can have in your life. And while some passengers opt to sleep-in the hunger or maybe ask for a tea or coffee instead, others would still bet their luck on getting decent food to fill their rumbling tummy. If you know that you are getting stuck on the plane during absolute meal times and you are not in for in-flight meals why not grab something to eat while waiting for your flight to board. In that way, you don't have to force yourself to eat airline meals because you are not hungry anyway.

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