Summary
- Alaska Airlines will bring back hot meals to the main cabin on flights over 1,100 miles.
- Four hot meal options are available for pre-order purchases starting 2 weeks before departure.
- Chef Tony Wright is behind a West Coast-inspired menu; passengers are excited about the improved inflight dining experience.
On May 22nd, 2024, Seattle-based carrier Alaska Airlines launched a new initiative to improve the passenger experience onboard its aircraft. The carrier is elevating the premium onboard menu and will bring back hot meals available for purchase in the Main Cabin, a luxury currently only reserved for business class passengers.
The airline’s motivation for this new initiative comes from the success of its industry-leading food and beverage pre-order program, which allows passengers to select their desired meals long before takeoff. Alaska Airlines claims it has and will continue offering more dining choices on domestic flights than any other airline.
Starting today, passengers can select from a handful of new meal options, all chef-curated and taste-tested by the airline’s employees. The carrier indicated that these new meal options will be available on all flights exceeding 1,100 miles in length, and all will be guaranteed to include at least one hot meal choice.
Program specifics
The airline’s new food and beverage program will include four key new hot meal options, complementing freshly prepared cold offerings like the carrier’s signature fruit and cheese platter. The four new hot meal choices will be as follows:
- Carnitas Breakfast Bowl
- Monte Cristo Breakfast Sandwich
- Panang Curry Chicken
- Pretzel Roll Sliders with Chips
Passengers should check the carrier’s website or mobile app to see which specific meals will be available on their flights. Furthermore, hot food will only be available for pre-order purchases between 2 weeks and 20 hours before departure. The carrier also noted that passengers making purchases on select Alaska Airlines credit cards could receive up to 20% back in statement credits.
The brain behind Alaska’s new delicious menu is the British Chef, Tony Wright, who has worked multiple times over the past few years with the airline’s catering service, LSG Sky Chefs. The restaurateur quickly indicated that West Coast cuisine was the primary inspiration for the latest additions to the carrier’s menu.

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An exciting opportunity
According to the airline, passengers have demanded an upgrade to the carrier’s inflight meal offerings in the main cabin for years. Over the past year, the Alaska Airlines team worked diligently behind the scenes to achieve this.
Photo: GingChen | Shutterstock
The airline’s leadership team was understandably excited by today’s program launch. In a statement, Todd Traynor-Corey, a managing director for guest products at Alaska Airlines, had the following words to share:
“We’re known for an inflight menu that is more thoughtfully curated with care. For a while now, our guests have often asked us if we’re ever going to bring back hot meals in the Main Cabin.”
The executive would add that the airline had attempted to maintain relative secrecy around the fact that hot meals would soon be returning to their economy class cabins, which proved challenging given the excitement surrounding the matter. Regardless of whether passengers are seated in the airline’s luxurious premium cabins or the standard economy-class cabin, they can try out the culinary delights brought to them by Chef Tony’s West Coast-inspired gourmet menu.