Japanese airline offers first class dining on parked plane for £392 a meal
Whether you love it or hate it, plane food is an essential part of any long-haul journey. After a year of no foreign holidays, some passengers in Japan are missing the plane food experience so much that they are dining on first class meals on a plane to nowhere.
The concept, introduced by Japan’s biggest airline All Nippon Airways (ANA), launched this week offering both first and business class meals to eager travellers wanting to dine on a parked plane.
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It didn’t come cheap either, with the first class meal costing 59,800 yen (£392) and the business class meal coming in at 29,800 yen (£195).
Passengers on board were able to choose from Japanese dishes, western-style beef and western-style fish options.
A spokesperson for ANA told Yahoo UK that both the first and business class offerings sold out “much earlier” than expected.
“With the event's great success, we have decided to host the dining experience for 22 lunch and dinner slots in April,” they added.
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The spokesperson said that the customers included aviation and travel fans, as well as families with children who were “seeking some entertainment amid the ongoing limitations due to COVID”.
All passengers and crew members wore face masks, but the passengers were able to lower their masks while they were eating. As meals were served in business and first class cabins, this means there was space between most passengers.
The experience took place on a Boeing 777 parked at Haneda Airport in Tokyo and while no in-flight entertainment was offered, passengers did receive amenity kits.
The airline joins the likes of Singapore Airlines who started offering meals on parked planes to passengers last October - where prices rose to £360 for a meal in one of the A380 top floor suites.
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Last week British Airways teamed up with DO & Co to make its first class menu available for home delivery. There’s four different at-home meal kits which serve two and start from £80.
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