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Once the go-to punching bag for every amateur Seinfeld impersonator, airline food has never gotten all that much respect. Unless you’re fortunate enough to be flying first-class with Emirates on the regular, airplane grub has historically been perceived as flavorless, over-processed dreck most people would not dream of having as a conscious choice. Oh, how the tables have turned.
According to BBC News, Singapore Airlines is now offering dine-in service on one of two Airbus A380s parked at Singapore Changi Airport. Hop on a stationary plane, have a meal, maybe watch a movie, get out. And even though the most luxurious seats cost the equivalent of almost $500—an economy seat can be reserved for about $39—the first two days of meals sold out within 30 minutes. Thankfully for Singaporeans looking to get a taste of pre-COVID life, the airline is adding two more dates and opening a waitlist for both lunch and dinner sessions.
Each session is three hours long and, to maintain social distancing, each aircraft will only be half full. What’s more, the airline is also offering home delivery of its meals packed with the obligatory Singapore Airlines-branded utensils.
While recreational air travel remains somewhere between strongly discouraged and outright banned depending on where you’re from and where you’re going, the aviation industry has been experiencing layoffs and losses left and right. Singapore Airlines appears to be recuperating some of those losses here capitalizing on a pent-up desire to re-experience any aspect of normal life before coronavirus.
Singapore Airlines reportedly even contemplated offering sightseeing “flights to nowhere” but have since passed on the idea despite competitors Qantas and Eva offering flights that start and end at the same airport.
If there’s anything that can be learned from all this, it’s that we truly do not know what we have until it’s gone. Excuse me while I send Delta’s culinary team a huge apology.
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