Starting in Spring 2021, the Lufthansa Group carriers will offer a variety of fresh, high quality food and beverage choices with a regional flare in Economy Class on short and medium-haul flights.
On Tuesday (November 17, 2020), Lufthansa announced that Group carriers Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian Airlines will launch an enhanced food and beverage offer for Economy Class guests on short and medium-haul flights. From Spring 2021, guests will be able to purchase fresh, high quality, food and beverage options with a regional touch. The new range of food and beverage options will be prepared with the highest quality standards and offer something to suit the taste of every guest. With the Group’s commitment to sustainability, they have selected environmentally-friendly products and packaging, with a focus on reducing food waste through customized production. In Tuesday’s announcement, Lufthansa Group Executive Board Member for Customer, IT and Corporate Responsibility, Christina Foerster, said,
“Our current snack offer in Economy Class does not always meet the expectations of our guests. The new offer was developed on the basis of feedback from our customers. With the high-quality offer available for purchase, our passengers will be able to decide what they want to eat and drink on their journey.”
Each individual airline will launch the new range of food and beverages, some with regional offerings, with a focus on fresh products and a selection of snacks. The new menu options, which will be available for purchase, will replace the standard complimentary snack, which will no longer be offered. The new program will be rolled out in phases during Spring 2021, starting with Austrian Airlines, followed by SWISS and Lufthansa.
In a separate announcement today, Austrian Airlines introduced their new catering concept which is called “Austrian Melangerie,” which will be offered in Economy Class on European flights. The menu options will focus on classic Austrian dishes which will provide guests with a feeling of home during their travels. For flights up to three hours, passengers will be treated to a complimentary “Austrian Signature Treat.”
Guests will also be offered an extensive premium range of high-quality food and beverage choices for purchase. The previous choice of a sweet or salty snack will be discontinued in favor of new choices curated with quality, regionality and variety in mind. Austrian Airlines' customers will enjoy classic dishes such as apple strudel or a cold platter (an Austrian Brettjause) as well as cold and warm snacks and an extensive offering of primarily regional beverages. In Tuesday’s announcement, Austrian Airlines Executive Board Member, Andreas Otto, said,
“Air travel in itself and the related expectations of our passengers have changed over the last few years. Instead of an all-inclusive offering, we want to increasingly personalize the flight experience, especially for Economy Class passengers, and allow them to decide for themselves what services are important to them. Thanks to our new catering concept, we are taking this wish into consideration, and investing in a high-quality food and beverage offering on board. In the future, we will continue to offer the flight itself, which is our basic product, at a reasonable price – in addition, we will give every passenger who wants more than this the possibility to select from a premium range of products in line with their own preferences. Similar to a modular system, our guests will choose those services which are relevant for them.”
Austrian Airlines’ Economy Class guests traveling within Europe will now be able to select from the carrier’s “Austrian Melangerie” offering with options such as a Viennese breakfast, fresh classic dishes such as chicken schnitzel or Kaiserschmarren (sweet cut-up pancakes with raisins). can also select from a range of cold snacks, chips, chocolate and a wide selection soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. Additionally, Austrian Airlines will thank every customer with a chocolate gift.
The service changes announced today will not impact Business Class guests who will continue to enjoy the bespoke Austrian service they have come to expect. The current Economy Class service for flights over three hours will also remain unchanged and passengers traveling on Austrian Holidays charter flights will continue to enjoy complimentary snacks and beverages.
Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) will also launch the new food and beverage concept from Zurich during spring 2021, which will duplicate the carrier’s popular ‘SWISS Saveurs’ program which has been offered from Geneva since 2018. Short and medium-haul guests traveling from Zurich next spring will enjoy a selection of fresh new menu items and beverages with an emphasis on strong regional connections. Naturally, all SWISS guests will continue to enjoy a complimentary bottle of water and popular SWISS chocolate tablets, but the new program will replace the current standard snack offer, which will be discontinued. SWISS’s current short and medium-haul Business Class service concept will remain unchanged. In Tuesday’s announcement, SWISS' Chief Commercial Officer, Tamur Goudarzi Pour, said,
“Our guests today want to have a greater say in their individual travel experience, and that expectation is no longer always met through our present inflight food and beverage product. In Geneva, we already offer our customers the opportunity to select their preferred snacks and drinks themselves under our ‘SWISS Saveurs’ programme. We’ve been getting very good feedback on this quality product from the guests concerned. So, we’ve decided to extend the programme to our flights from Zurich, too.”
In the coming months, each of the airlines will provide further details regarding the new food and beverage options which will be available for purchase from Spring 2021.
Source(s): Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, SWISS