Restaurant chains are looking for new ways to satisfy hungry consumers who are on the fly
by Tammy E. Lash
The whole idea behind fast food may be to give folks on the fly a chance to grab a bite to eat and take off, but no one could have predicted that one day the concept would become so literal.
Airline passengers can not only snatch a name-brand sandwich, pizza or taco in scores of airport terminals these days, but they can belly up to a meal of their favorite famous entrees on board many flights, as well. This growing trend is mutually advantageous to the airlines and restaurant chains.
Airlines have been notoriously targeted as purveyors of food its passengers can barely recognize. And restaurant chains, bruising in their battles for lucrative commercial lots all over the United States, are looking for new ways to get their recognized meals into the hands of hungry consumers. The classic result is McDonald's "Friendly Skies" meals aboard United Airlines flights and scores of similar agreements also in practice or on the drawing board.
So far, the meat processing industry may be barely noticing a blip on its sales charts as a result of fast-food contracts with the airlines. Indeed, those processors who have such agreements aren't talking numbers, and the practice is so new that statistics haven't been developed yet. But given the size of the market for food served in connection with various forms of transportation-$2.9 billion, according to the National Restaurant Association-meat processors stand to enjoy some significant opportunities as airlines and name-brand chains form new distribution alliances.
Next step: Catch a plane
The expansion of fast-food into the sky is part of a larger trend among restaurants, according to Wendy Webster, spokeswoman for the National Restaurant Association.
"Here in America, traditional fast-food units have pretty much reached a saturation point," she points out. "Domestically, the way to compete is proliferation at non-traditional fast-food units and non-traditional locations."
Airplanes are the next step for an industry that has already sought out such non-traditional distribution points as hospitals, schools, service stations, airports and discount stores, among others, claims Harry Balzer, an analyst with NPD Group, a Chicago-based marketing and consumer research firm.
"The name of the game is locations," Balzer says. "The guy who gets the most stores up is the winner. It's all about distribution. You have to sell products where the customers are."
The agreement between McDonald's and United Airlines appears to be the one that got the ball rolling for airlines and restaurant chains. McDonald's and United Airlines jointly announced in 1991 that the "Friendly Skies" kids' meals would be available on flights from Chicago-where both companies are headquartered-to Orlando, Fla., a city to which United had just expanded its service. Six months later, McDonald's and United expanded the program to include 250 flights from Chicago.
Customers can order the meals when making reservations or up to six hours prior to departure. More than 350,000 meals have been served since the "Friendly Skies" meal program began, according to United officials.
At present, the McDonald's meal specifically targets children with a boxed meal of a cheeseburger or hamburger, assorted side dishes and a Ronald McDonald toy. The breakfast meal comes with a sausage biscuit sandwich. A McDonald's spokeswoman says there are no plans to expand the program to include a menu for adults, although adults often order the meal and are not discouraged from doing so.
Quality at 35,000 feet
Logistically, initiating service of name-brand food in the air provided the airline and the restaurant with some unique challenges, according to representatives on both sides.
"McDonald's was worried about the quality," says United spokesman Tony Molinaro. "They wanted to be sure that what you get at 35,000 feet is the same as what you get on the ground."
Consequently, french fries are out of the question, he adds; the McDonald's Friendly Skies meals don't include fries and probably never will. As for the rest of the meal, McDonald's provides the airline's kitchens with the food along with the specifications for cooking and warming, Molinaro says.
It is that concern for quality that has other big players still sitting on the sidelines for the time being. Rob Doughty, vice president of marketing communications for Pizza Hut, says the company has been approached by more than one airline looking for an opportunity to strike up a relationship.
"We have yet to find a way to cook our pizzas, then reheat them and serve them at that altitude and still keep the same quality," he explains.
The stumbling block is the food must be frozen and then reheated, says Susan Henry, manager of product development with Northwest Airlines. She adds that Northwest has cleared this hurdle by working with smaller, regional chains that are more able to adapt their product to the need for freezing and reheating.
Passengers in the Memphis, Tenn.-area get barbecued pork and beans from a well-known regional chain while Boston-area passengers enjoy clam chowder, Henry says. Likewise, New York-area passengers feast on familiar local bagels. The movement to name-brand foods is part of an overall campaign to improve in-flight food service, she points out.
American Airlines is following a similar strategy, according to spokesman Joe Crawley. That airline overhauled its entire foodservice group recently with a "Chef's Conclave," in which the menu and appropriate food-preparation and handling procedures were rewritten and name brands were added to the offerings. The airline added cheese pizzas by regional player Pizzeria Uno and pasta dishes by Weight Watchers to the entree selections and such brand names as Frito Lay, Kraft, Light n' Lively, I Can't Believe it's Yogurt, Haagen Daz and Pepperidge Farm to its snack selections.
Other restaurant chains aren't readily willing to say they are working on developing their airline menus, but they aren't ruling out the possibility either. Representatives of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell, for instance, say they don't currently have a product in the air, but they are actively looking for alternative distribution opportunities.
Not all airlines are excited by the idea of name brands on the food trays, however. Delta Air Lines has revamped its menus in the past year, moving toward more healthful offerings, according to Paulette O'Donnell, manager of corporate communications. "It sounds like we're going toward more service and they're going toward less," she says.
But one fact seems clear to observers of the restaurant industry and its race to win over increasingly mobile and time-crunched consumers: Jet airliners provide an excellent market opportunity because the 100 to 200 or so passengers packed into the cabin of a commercial flight have few options when the food carts start rolling. "It's a captive audience," NPD's Balzer points out. "They've (the restaurants) got to love that."