Airline passenger news and views

SKYTRAX, a research, consultancy and evaluation body that provides 'professional audit and service benchmarking programmes of product and service quality' in the airline and airport industries is launching a new award, and one for which you might be very thankful of - a reward about onboard food.

Indeed, SKYTRAX plans to scrutiny 'Onboard Catering' quality levels offered by airlines around the world and award a Star Dining Certification to those who deserve it, as of January 2012.

The program will not be about evaluating the level of luxury in top classes' offerings such as bubbling champagne or duck liver pâtée, but will assess all meals across all spectrums of airline classes, from the standards of buy-onboard to first-class multi-courses. The Star Dining Certification will evaluate every type of meal for every type of passenger.

The inspection will cover food flavour, freshness and quality at the time of service onboard. The highest award will be the Five Star Dining Certification, and the ladder of stars will help airlines enhance the quality of their in-flight meals. SKYTRAX experts will apply the same objective, rigorous evaluation and use the same assessing criteria not only across meals from different airline classes but also across all kinds of cultural gastronomies.

Also included in the analysis will be alcoholic and non-alcohol beverages and this will represent a very important component of the evaluation, says SKYTRAX. Again here, the company will apply the same rigorous methods of evaluation for every kind of drink, be it a vintage wine or a regional tea.

While SKYTRAX does already offer an assessment of onboard servings through its Airline Star Ranking programme, the Star Dining Certification will analyze meals much more meticulously. The certification will become a reference for both airlines and customers; for airline to improve the onboard dining experience offered to their guests through expert analysis and for customers to know more about what they are eating and compare meals across different airlines.

Nothing will be left to uncertainty anymore; the quality of the meal waiting for you on your next flight will be made available through deep research.