Tianjin Airlines announced that in addition to enjoying economy class, other economy class passengers will no longer enjoy free meals and will be replaced by paid meals. According to official website of Tianjin Airlines, the prices of eight kinds of meals, such as table braised pork rice, kung pao chicken rice and spicy beef tenderloin rice, are all in 37 yuan, while the prices of four kinds of packages with relatively rich dishes, such as Chuanfu Impression, Qilu Classic, Cantonese Restaurant and Healthy Vegetarian Food, are in 99 yuan.

The reporter found that before Tianjin Airlines, airlines such as Spring Airlines, Xiangpeng Airlines, China United Airlines, Western Airlines and Jiuyuan Airlines had cancelled free meals, allowing passengers to purchase paid meals separately according to their own wishes.

Take Jiuyuan Airlines, which focuses on low-cost air tickets, as an example. Except for the "business optimization" gear, the two tickets of "careful calculation" and "smart and affordable" provided by Jiuyuan Airlines do not provide meals for free. For passengers who need to eat on the plane, they can order through official channels 12 hours before the plane takes off. The price in official website is 19 yuan/serving for breakfast and 29 yuan/serving for lunch and dinner.

Full-service airlines will not consider it for the time being

The reporter found that although airplane meals are provided free of charge, the cost is actually included in the ticket price. Because of the stripping of additional services such as airplane meals and luggage consignment, low-cost airlines are more attractive in terms of fares, and their ticket prices are 21% to 41% lower than those of similar airlines in the market at the same time.

Take Feihaikou, Changsha, as an example, the ticket price of the "budget saving" gear of Jiuyuan Airlines is 359 yuan, while China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines are around 611 yuan.

A staff member of China Southern Airlines, who asked not to be named, told reporters that at present, airlines that cancel free meals mainly take short-haul routes, and passengers on short-haul routes mainly pursue low prices, and additional services are not attractive to passengers. However, full-service airlines such as China Southern Airlines and Air China mainly rely on long-haul routes, and such passengers pay more attention to services, including free meals and checked baggage, so they may not consider canceling free meals in the future.

"With the improvement of consumption level, there are more and more personalized needs of tourists, so whether to provide free meals should be subdivided according to the market." The reporter interviewed an industry insider yesterday. He told the reporter that services including free meals, baggage check-in and in-flight entertainment are all derived from transportation needs, but now the needs of passengers are not limited to safely reaching their destinations. The cabin with closed space provides aviation enterprises with greater potential for developing value-added services.

reporter's observation

Tianjin Airlines is not the first company to cancel the free airplane meals, and I believe it will not be the last one.

for airlines with short-haul routes as the main route, canceling free meals and other value-added services will reduce costs, boost flight attendance at lower fares, bring profits to enterprises, and gain a share in the highly competitive short-haul routes.

However, for full-service airlines, their service targets are more passengers who need to fly long distances, and all-round services such as free plane meals, luggage consignment and airport Wi-Fi will be more attractive than the fluctuation of ticket prices.

According to The New York Times's report in 2117, some low-cost airlines in the United States have moved their cancelled free meals back to their cabins. Therefore, the retention of free meals mainly depends on whether consumers who take the airline or the route are willing to pay the bill, and changes in passenger flow and income are the best explanations.

the above contents refer to people's daily online? Will there be free airplane meals in the future?