Late evening flights and meals
 

I took a flight last night which took off from Zurich at 23:30 on a 3.5 hour flight. As we reached cruising altitude (and after a bit of turbulence over the Alps) all the cabin lights came on and a meal service was started.

Now I know I paid for this meal, but frankly I would have preferred they keep the lights down and we all get a bit of sleep; especially the rather fractious young children on board, for whom it was a very late night.

When I take the reverse journey which leaves at about 05:30, they deliberately tell us to shut the blinds after take off, keeps the lights down and encourage us to sleep until they serve breakfast about 2.5 hours later. I like this as I get to catch up a bit on the sleep lost by having to get to the airport for about 03:00.

What would you prefer?

It's difficult because it would depend on whether I was tired, whether I'd eaten already, the likely quality of the food offered etc etc. So probably impossible to find a concensus amongst those on board.

How about an announcement at the start - "Those who want food/drinks, please keep your reading light on and we'll serve you"? That could be a good compromise, but whether crew can serve food without the cabin lights on (either whether they are permitted, or is there enough residual light to see by), I don't know.

I think you should also consider that some of your fellow passengers can be on a totally different clock and be hungry. The joy of traveling faster than your internal body clock can adapt to the time zone changes.

I carry "Please don't wake for food" and "Please wake for food" stickers which I print up from time to time. Many moons ago I remember some airlilnes handing out such things. Also, earplugs and eye shades.

Emirates still hand out such things in a little bag. It's sitting on the seat when you board.

This is my only complaint with emirates when travelling east. They keep the lights on several hours into the flight when its a good chance to get some sleep.

I flew out of HKG just after midnight on a 13hr flight to LHR (in Y) with BA a few years ago and they did not serve an evening meal although we did get a cooked breakfast. I was expecting an evening meal as we did get one outbound on a 2230 departure from LHR - SIN, although I would agree that two in the morning is not the obvious time to eat. My view is that if an airline saves money on a main meal on a flight of that length it should upgrade the mid flight snacks in the galley to something substantial as you can get rather peckish mid-flight.

On another matter, I wish that some airlines could give more details of meal services on their website so that you know what to expect.

Any good cabin manager whatever airline would judge the mood of the cabin before deciding to serve a meal at night. These days lights could be dimmed for a service especially with the Dreamliner with its lighting effects. There is no need to have lights on full at all. Infact when I was flying the old classic 747 we would always have lights on 'dim' for any meal service at night, then turn the screens and start the movie.