While many travelers find standard snacks satisfactory for short-haul flights, the promise of high-quality cuisine serves as a compelling selling point for long-haul international carriers. Consequently, the research, planning, and testing of menus and wine lists are conducted with the same meticulous attention to detail as in a top-tier restaurant, often yielding remarkable results.
Industry experts emphasize that the role of an airline catering virtuoso extends beyond merely ensuring that the food tastes good or is comparable to that of a fine dining establishment.
Qatar Airways Catering Services Vice President, Shashank Bhardwaj, explains that the great leveller is the physics of being aloft in a pressurised tube. “Whether you’re in the Business Class cabin or in Economy Class, you’re subject to the same limitations imposed by physics. The most important of these is humidity, or rather lack of it; until recently the air inside pressurised aircraft cabins had to be very dry in order to prevent corrosion. This dryness cuts our sense of taste and smell by about a third, meaning that even well-prepared food can seem bland. It’s been described as having a similar effect to a head cold.”
He explains that two major advances have helped overcome this: “The first is the result of years of experimenting by chefs which led to the realisation that umami – the dense savoury flavour found in a variety of foods including charcuterie, spinach, Chinese cabbage, seaweed, soy sauce and tomatoes with a deep, red hue – helps win over senses dulled by dry air.
“Umami is arguably at its most intense in hard Parmigiano Regianno cheese, which is why lovers of Italian food consider their bowl of pasta incomplete without some shavings of it.”
The second development is innovation in design and materials, including carbon-fibre reinforced plastic in the fuselage of aircraft, which allows air inside to be more humid without risking structural damage.
Several other factors are also accommodated. The first: getting the food onto the aircraft must take place within its flight schedule and the strict time constraints of other aspects of commercial aviation, including passengers embarking and disembarking; luggage and cargo being loaded and offloaded; and the aircraft being cleaned and refuelled.
Bhardwaj illustrates the complexity of airline catering by talking through some of the scale of Qatar Airways’ food and beverage operations. Last year alone, the airline utilised more than 5,000 tonnes of fruits and vegetables. This equals to 13.5 tonnes a day. The 5-star airline also prepared and served more than 4,500 tonnes of poultry, meat and fish as part of the 350,000 gourmet meals prepared for its flights daily. All meals are meticulously prepared to accommodate dietary preferences of the demographic on specific routes.
In Doha, Qatar Airways’ home and hub, the food is prepared at Qatar Aircraft Catering Company’s (QACC) facilities that operates 24 hours and 7 days a week. QACC’s output requires a storage unit that covers 69,000 square metres, the world's largest self-sufficient catering facility in a single building. The food produced for Qatar Airways, its lounges at the award-winning Hamad International Airport, and other airlines operating out of Doha, is transported to waiting aircraft in more than 200 trucks. All these activities take place in the context of what happens in the sky.
Qatar Airways’ catering offering is frequently recognised with awards and accolades, but Bhardwaj says it’s knowing that the airline’s exacting standards are met more than 350,000 times a day over hundreds of thousands of air-miles is what’s really fulfilling. “Eating and drinking well and travelling, whether for business or pleasure, are two of life’s joys. Enabling our valued customers to do both is as rewarding as it is demanding,” Bhardwaj concludes.
Qatar Airways has flights operating in and out of South Africa’s three major cities, including Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg. In its vast network of more than 170 global destinations, the reigning ‘Airline of the Year’ currently offers 180 flights per week to nearly 30 destinations across Africa. Over the past 12 months, Qatar Airways has also optimised its schedule to most African destinations in order to improve connectivity to Europe, China and the subcontinent of India through the Best Airport in the World, Doha’s Hamad International Airport.
Qatar Airways has once again been recognized as the 'World's Best Airline' at the 2024 World Airline Awards, marking the eighth time the airline has received this prestigious accolade. In addition to this, Qatar Airways has also been awarded titles such as 'World's Best Business Class', 'World's Best Business Class Airline Lounge', and 'Best Airline in the Middle East'. The airline's commitment to excellence is further highlighted by its recent recognition as the 'World's Best Airline Website' by the World Travel Tech Awards. Furthermore, Qatar Airways has set industry standards by being the first airline in the Middle East to achieve the highest level of certification in IATA's Environmental Assessment programme and by being a pioneer in the fight against illegal wildlife trafficking in aviation. With a network of over 170 destinations worldwide, Qatar Airways continues to connect passengers through its hub at Hamad International Airport, which has been named the 'World's Best Airport' multiple times by Skytrax.