The 5 Worst Airline Meals Of All Time (PHOTOS)

To put together this selection of worst airline meals for my book, Titanic Awards (Perigee Publishing, May 4, 2010), I turned to Marco 't Hart, the Netherlands-based editor of AirlineMeals.net, who has collected more than 20,000 photos of airline meals from about 600 airlines in every flight class imaginable. They were sent to him by thousands of travelers with a shared interest in photographing and critiquing airline food. These meals are, he believes, the worst he has ever seen...

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1. ESTONIAN AIR

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WHERE: Served on a Tallinn to Copenhagen flight. TASTER’S COMMENTS: What was in the meal? Very good question! Starter: cold rice with a few peas, sweet corn, and olive skin. Main course: I believe it was cold Baltic herring (those three pieces of gray, slimy things on the left), potato salad (recycled, I think), lettuce (left by the snails as being inedible), piece of tomato ( for color), bread roll (warm on arrival, but overdone in microwave, so solid within a few minutes). Dessert: able to break this stodgy, doughy thing into pieces, but no flavor at all, so not sure what it was supposed to be. TASTER: Allen

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WHERE: Served on a Tallinn to Copenhagen flight.
TASTER’S COMMENTS: What was in the meal? Very good question! Starter: cold rice with a few peas, sweet corn, and olive skin. Main course: I believe it was cold Baltic herring (those three pieces of gray, slimy things on the left), potato salad (recycled, I think), lettuce (left by the snails as being inedible), piece of tomato ( for color), bread roll (warm on arrival, but overdone in microwave, so solid within a few minutes). Dessert: able to break this stodgy, doughy thing into pieces, but no flavor at all, so not sure what it was supposed to be.
TASTER: Allen

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This Meal

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

I'd try it! Ugh, would NEVER eat that!

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Comments

[DELIO]

03:52 PM on 05/17/2010

De fato alguns pratos têm uma cor estranha.
Aqui no Brasil, especialmente nos vôos da Tam e Gol, quase não há comida nos vôos internos. Só biscoitos, torradas e sanduíches. Temos uma companhia regional, a Trip, que serve saladas e frango.
Recentemente voei de São Paulo-GRU à Bogotá-BOG na Class Comfort da Varig; que é nada mais que uma econômica premium. A comida, em caixas de papel, lembra o que era servido nos vôos nacionais nos anos anteriores aos anos de 1990. Serviram vinho nacional (muito bom).

[yuki383]

10:10 PM on 05/12/2010

I can see arrogance here. There are many starving people in other countries.

[Steamboater]

12:28 AM on 05/08/2010

All of these dishes look like crap and I can understand Aeroflot having the worst airline meal Lansky ever ate but the one shown sure even looks better than the one they served me several years ago--a half a boiled chicken that looked like it been through the revolution a few times and laid out to rot in the sun. Fatty, discolored and just awful and just as repellant as the very, I don't Give a Sh*t female steward. What's surprising though is Alitalia served up something unedible. How could you ruin Italian food and how could Italians ruin it???? :)

[sisyphus93]

01:35 PM on 05/07/2010

#3...what is that? Salmon in pus sauce?

[David Rozgonyi]

08:52 AM on 05/07/2010

Most interesting meal (but hardly bad) was on China Airlines. This was ten or fifteen years ago.... Anyway, it was a big, whole dried fish with boiling spicy leafy things on the side and not much else. It was a rough flight as I recall, and so (since this was a while ago) at every lunge of the aircraft, the click of cigarette lighters was a chorus! Cabin filled like fog with the smell of dried fish and tobacco....mmmm! I love both, so I was fine. :)

Worst food usually is on United. Sits in your stomach like a brick.
Best food is always on Thai Airways. ALWAYS. Generous with the drinks, too....
Frequent flier tip: always order a special meal. For me, usually Hindu b/c I love Indian. Fresher, tastier, lighter in the tum and served up first! Cheers!

[Klara Arike]

08:31 AM on 05/07/2010

As an estonian I'd like to defend Estonian Air, just a bit. I don't think they serve such horrible stuff these days. I'm a frequent flyer and honestly, I haven't seen any of that scary food on board. But it was really bad years ago. I'm quite picky and actually haven't had a plane meal that I liked. Sandwitches are usually the most safe choice (at least on EA flights) and are actually pretty good.
My worst plane meal experience was Finnair (finnish airways) vegetarian food - after opening the metal container I saw an oily chunk of cheese that was supposed to be veg.lasagne. My mate ordered beef that looked like cat food, pieces of something brown in a jelly...

[ooogah]

06:57 PM on 05/04/2010

Food on Air Canada yyz-lhr was pretty good. Gotta love the warm cookies that they bake on board!

[David McDevitt]

02:57 PM on 05/04/2010

I had great food on swiss air last year

[Ayeesha]

06:12 PM on 05/04/2010

My worse meal was on Varig - London to Rio. NEVER AGAIN, TERRIBLE FOOD, TERRIBLE SNOOTY STAFF, JUST HORRID.

[Jana Jay]

01:54 PM on 05/04/2010

I don't fly for a dining experience, but long ago, on Eastern first class from Jacksonville to LAX, lamb chops and champagne! Not long ago, on Aerolineas Argentinas, apparently having been seated in the lowly gringo section, I was handed dry spaghetti with something red on it. It was the single worst thing I have been served on any airline in more than forty years of flying. I pack my own now.

[Jana Jay]

01:13 PM on 05/04/2010

Years ago, on Eastern Airlines from Jacksonville FL to LAX I had, including but not limited to, lamb chops, omelet, champagne, champagne.
Rather recently, on Aerolineas Argentinas, there was cold dry spaghetti with something red on it

[learninglife]

11:43 AM on 05/04/2010

Oh. And because it seems like a rarity these days, I do want to give credit to Virgin Atlantic for a great NYC to London flight about 10 years ago. Complimentary bags w/ slippers, toothbrush, eyeshades, pen/pad. Then good food, excellent coffee, hot towels, and even a Haagen Daz bar for a snack.

By now, decent service results in slobbering gratitude!

[learninglife]

11:33 AM on 05/04/2010

I missed breakfast, so some of this stuff doesn't look half bad.

Honestly can't remember the worst meal I've ever had on an airline, but do remember the worst coffee, which tasted like the water had been taken from a swimming pool and the grounds reused three times - plus it was lukewarm. To add insult to injury, I was encased in a middle seat while "enjoying" the horrid brew.

[Mondayboy]

02:58 PM on 05/03/2010

The best flight of my life - a first class flight from Moscow, Russia to Singapore on Singapore Airlines. Infact, when we landed I did not want to get out of the plane. They treated me like a king: special slippers, lots of champagne, great food that could match any food from any top restaurant etc. I don't think the US airlines have any clue about customer service.

And I place the blame squarely on most of these silly consulting firms such as BCG, McKinsey etc. who are so focused on the bottomline that the human experience means nothing to them.

[TheInsomniac]

11:50 AM on 05/03/2010

The sausage was split down the middle so it wouldn't explode when nuked.

[1234-Estonia]

10:46 AM on 05/03/2010

About Estonian Air's old food menu:
1) Could food, big mistake
2) I don't like oil, i even dry off oil from baked food with paper
3) Baltic herring is poisonous - mercury in it can be even 3-5 times over the limit considered safe.
There is about 23000 barrels mercury (that's known, can be more) in Baltic Sea, throwed out by industries ages agoo when there wasn't environment protection. Allsoo CCCP dropped in Baltic Sea chemical weapons after war.

So be warned do eat fish not too often from Baltic Sea.