tell us about your crew meals

[Village Idiot1]

I would be interested to hear about crew meals from different companies. I scrape my Qlink meal into a bag and take home for my pooch, hope the RSPCA don't find out.

[Dash8driver1312]

Crew meals? You mean when you go to the supermarket and buy something? ;-)

Our outfit provides reasonable options, but only for free if you have a duty time over 11 hours. Three options at a time but I've almost never taken one because I can prepare a tastier pack myself before I go to work.

[greybeard]

In a previous life, on DC-3s, a sort of "hard boiled egg" with Corn Flakes for breakfast

Then a cardboard box with cold meat and warm salad for lunch and dinner

Later hot meals, grey meat and gravy,

Apple sauce, = Pork
Cranberry Sauce = beef
Light grey meat = Chicken

What a sorry state you have allowed the system to become when you pay to eat on your Aircraft.

You are what you sign it seems

:\

[roundsounds]

Hey Village Idiot 1 - I totally agree with you, this situation is totally unacceptable. After giving this terrible situation a great deal of thought I have concluded flight crew should be afforded the same meal service as the majority of people who work for a living - self cater.

[ACMS]

Really? That's going to be hard for a lot of us away in Asia for a week to do, especially on 10 hour duty days back of the clock in god knows what country.......yeah wonderful idea.....:D

Besides the obvious health and safety issues.



You are aware that in the ICAO medical manual it's written that Flight Crew should be given a hot meal every 4 hours, something to do with blood sugar levels, staying awake ( fatigue ) health and safety and all that poppy cock!!

So you just go ahead and grab a day old sandwich from that nice little chew and spew coffee shop next door to your comfy little office......if you get sick then just go home to bed ( or the toilet bowel )

[neville_nobody]

Hey Village Idiot 1 - I totally agree with you, this situation is totally unacceptable. After giving this terrible situation a great deal of thought I have concluded flight crew should be afforded the same meal service as the majority of people who work for a living - self cater.


And how do you plan to do that on a 11 hour overnight with the nearest 24 hour supermarket 3-4kms away in a state with quarantine restrictions? Guess you must really love eating tuna 24/7 and carting around 3-4 pieces of luggage everywhere you go.....:ugh:

Crew meals are a pain in the arse (sometimes literally) for all involved but sure beat what goes on in the US where they gave away meals in cost cutting. I'll take crew meals over having to do Maccas runs on turnarounds.

[ACMS]

Not to mention that a lot of crew require special meals from health issues and cannot simply do a "Maccas run" between flights!!

[sixtiesrelic]

Greybeard! you forgot to mention that everything in the box lunch tasted of asparagus by lunchtime and the ham had sucked the moisture out of the tomato and lettuce so it now tasted like pork.

The bit of cake was nice.

They equipped the Twotters going out west with box lunches and I imagine the Friendships doing the Qld milk runs got 'em too.

Designed in 1946 when TAA was inaugurated, no one had ever decided to change the layout.

We had 'em in PNG in the early seventies.
Patair put an apple in them too.

[roundsounds]

My humble apologies, I didn't realise QLink flew international sectors.

[ACMS]

Oh come on, you knew his question wasn't just related to QLink ( read the question ) and your smart assed comment was directed at all flight crew.......

Good try but no Cigar.:D

[swh]

Crew meal ? The ones with two legs in the galley ?

(This a Rex thread ?)

[kellykelpie]

For those not lucky enough to get decent crew meals, I always found a Subway did the trick :)

[ACMS]

Ok until both Pilots eat from the same Subway and you get a bug........

If any Airline really takes their flight safety obligation seriously then they should provide adequate meals for their crews, some obviously don't care until.......

[Wally Mk2]

Lots of nutrition in a free bottle of water:E
As if Airline Co's care about their workers, someone is on the source I reckon:E
It's all about cost. Save a buck here save a buck there so the fat cats at the top still get paid squillions whilst their drones work like drone bees!

Wmk2

[Car RAMROD]

Yeah but the different crew meals are probably still prepared by the same catering place. One crook person could still handle both meals in some way and you still end up with the same result.

Where do you draw the line?

[skkm]

My humble apologies, I didn't realise QLink flew international sectors.

...they do.

[ACMS]

Well um actually no, the catering departments employ hygiene standards only NASA use!! Very little chance of contamination. Obviously never say never but procedures are in place to prevent such things happening and they take their job very seriously.

I doubt the local Subway would be even close.

[Capt Claret]

Well some of my QLink meals are very, very, nice. A curried Barra and red duck curry spring to mind. Yum..

Brekky, well that's only great if one likes muesli. I hate muesli. :}

[Stationair8]

The old safety digest story about the DC-3 night freight crew getting food piosoning from the toasted ham sandwiches, purchased prior to departure.

[Berealgetreal]

Breakfast not too bad, lunch very very repetitive and dinner is quite good. Dinner has come a loooong way.

The biggest issue we face is Cabin Crew taking the pick of the meals and/or removing the nice bits. FO easily gets the worst meal on board.

I've had some amazingly good crew meals and some amazingly bad ones in my time. Some better than a restaurant and some I've refused to eat.

As for bringing your own, I did do it for year and it's quite difficult to manage. I personally think Pilots carrying Eskies isn't a particularly good look but hey I don't blame them.

[j3pipercub]

You lot get meals??? Shheeeerrrr loooookshury.

Where I work you gotta get up an hour before you got to sleep, walk 20 miles to the airport and pay for the luxury of paying for the luxury of buying your own crew meal.

[ACMS]

And that's before you get the job.......:8

[VH-Cheer Up]

As for bringing your own, I did do it for year and it's quite difficult to manage. I personally think Pilots carrying Eskies isn't a particularly good look but hey I don't blame them.And one the marketing people would hate... If the airline food isn't up to scratch for the crew... What would the passengers think?

[VH-Cheer Up]

My Dad told me about a crew lunch pack loaded in Marseille for a 1950s freight charter flying crayfish back to the UK. Pilot, FO and R/O had a beautifully presented Salad Nicoise, accompanied by a small bottle of St Raphael, a red wine (alcoholic) aperitif! The high life indeed!

[redsnail]

We're entitled to 1 crew meal if our duty is over 5 hours.
2 meals if over 10 hours and 3 meals if over 13 hours.
We don't have a galley so it's cold meals for us.
We have a choice of sandwiches, Low fat low cholesterol, salads, crudités, breakfast or a meal.
Quality can range from barely edible to really tasty.
Usually there's a sandwich or a pasta meal, a roll with marg or butter and cheese, juice, fruit and biscuits or a slice of cake.
Some local things like german bread or dutch waffles.

[Pinky the pilot]

Back in the old Mail run days it was packaged Big sister fruitcake, (which a certain ppruner refueller would confiscate from us if we had any leftovers!:E We rapidly learned to take extra) minties, (as many as you wanted) and Jatz crackers with those cheese triangles!:ooh:

Dinner at the Boulia Pub on the Saturday Night was looooxury!!!! Especially the garlic bread!:ok:

[morno]

Was crumbed steak the Thursday night special back then too Pinky? :E

[Desert Flower]

(which a certain ppruner refueller would confiscate from us if we had any leftovers!

Guilty as charged your honor! ;)

minties

A certain Partenavia pilot didn't call me the mintie muncher for nothing! ;)

DF.

[Pinky the pilot]

Was crumbed steak the Thursday night special back then too Pinky

Dunno Morno. Never was at the Boulia Pub on a Thursday night, and for that matter I don't ever remember seeing it on their menu at any time!

'Course I don't remember too much about the Boulia Pub,:E other than the fact it was one of, if not the best outback watering holes I ever patronised!:ok::ok:

A certain Partenavia pilot didn't call me the mintie muncher for nothing!

Oh? Who was that? Initials will do.

[romeocharlie]

I think some of you are getting precious. In MOST cases it is possible to buy something and take it to work. This includes you whiners on 11 day trips. People with specific dietary (and not so specific - paleo) seem to cope just fine bringing food to work and finding it O/S. Yes it is harder to find healthier food or something edible in some places, or when you've got a fairly long duty ie extending to 16hrs or more.

I'm sure most guys and girls in GA that don't get catering would love a hot meal while they're dragging some over paid polly out to Burketown in a 40yo baron, but they pack their own lunch and don't whinge about it. I can only imagine the response I would've gotten if I'd asked GAM to cater my bank running everyday.

And to answer the original question, we get 4 business class hot meals, most of which are pretty good (probably not amazingly healthy) especially when hungry at 4am. I also bring my own food if I am trying to be healthy.

Rant over.
:ugh::ugh::ugh:

[Desert Flower]

Oh? Who was that? Initials will do.

The person in question was long gone before you came on the scene, so you wouldn't know him. He was a local guy - now lives in YMTG.

DF.

[KRUSTY 34]

Holy crap RC! Extended duty to 16 hours. What sort of FRMS do you work under? I'm guessing (hoping) split shifts.

The whole crew meal thing, (at least for RPT carriers) came about, and continues to this day as an alternative to regular crew breaks. The ironic thing is, crew meals in themselves do not mitigate fatigue. It's for this reason that many crews place an emphasis on not only their edibility, but quality as well.

As far as I'm concerned, given the choice I wouldn't touch them, too many variables. I would much prefer adequate breaks during a duty. If the companies who provide many of these poor excuses for nutrition were serious about fatigue, then they would too.

I'll wait for Hell to freeze over!

[morno]

I take my own meals to be heated up on the aircraft. Make up some food, stick it in a foil tray, into the freezer, then out on the days you need it.

Goes into a cooler bag which goes into my flight bag when I go to work and is normally still quite frozen half way through the shift when it's taken out to go into the oven.

I don't know why people are so up in arms about those of us that have to do it. It's normally better than the alternative.

I did several years in aeromed where you had to take your own food for your 12hr shift. No oven, just a cooler bag, maybe a microwave at one of your stops. Yet we never died at the controls.

Krusty, the aeromed organisation I worked for allowed up to 16hr shifts (max 12hrs rostered). However you were given some pretty generous time off after that.

morno

[ACMS]

Yep that's fine.:ok:

Just don't get incapacitated in flight because you know who they will blame!!! :eek:

Doesn't work for me though on 5 day patterns around Asia. Also my caring company have said we are not allowed to heat personal food in the Ovens, something about contaminating the Ovens ...........:{

[Gate_15L]

Horses for courses..... (pun intended)

Sure you blokes and blokesses in GA fully deserve those hot crew meals. I agree fully. Aeromed.. yeah been there and done that.. decent nosh was fairly important to get though that 14-16 hour day.

However it's your bosses in GA that are the problem. Just because there hasn't been a incident/accident related to food safety yet, doesn't mean it's a problem. The absence of a accident does not indicate the relative safety of the operation.

If $40-50s a crew for a crew meal on a operation is going to break the bank, should the operation be going in the first place?

RPT wise, yes, crew meals aren't just a safety measure, it's also a OTP measure. Can't have the crew missing OTP because they were out getting Subway. It's called, being proactive... more so about OTP sometimes! And exactly how the hell are you mean to self cater on a 4 day trip with minimum 10 hour rests in between, often in hotels that are located no where near supermarkets etc. Can you guarantee HACCP standards for your food?

HACCP procedures do make the food safety standard much higher than BYO or Subway. Ask NZ "Aviation Expert" Peter Clark all about that one... and the store bought chicken sandwich that caused the problem in the first place.

Like it or not.. we're human and we have to eat. It's not a economic inconvenience, its a basic human need, that needs to be fulfilled if we are to do our jobs safely...

[Berealgetreal]

OTP? I could quite easily either do the walk and entire set up while bloggs does the food run and still be ready to push early. The problem is getting the rest of the staff to get off facebook or actually concentrate and or try to get the machine out on time. People dont realise that those 30 minutes are for working not laughing and socialising. ****s me.

[romeocharlie]

Krusty,

Yeah they were split duties, long days bank running all week. It's what I think about when I'm complaining being up at 2am en route somewhere - and then I shut up. :oh:

I miss every minute of flying that 680 back into Melbourne at night though, and waking everyone in Essendon up at 730. ;)

[Lambswool]

I have lots of issues with my crew meals!

Always too much, too little, tastes horrible or is just simply full of stuff I do not like...

And no matter how much I complain to the wife. She just can't get it right!
:*

In any case it is on average, far better than the crew catering I used to receive when on duty.

[717tech]

I miss every minute of flying that 680 back into Melbourne at night though, and waking everyone in Essendon up at 730.

So you're the bugger....

[romeocharlie]

Sure was. I still sit there and listen to them about 0730 enjoying my nice warm bed these days haha.