While airlines aren’t known for serving up haute cuisine, not all in-flight meals are created equal. And unless you’re a frequent flyer, it can be hard to know in advance whether you’re in for a tasty meal, a re-heated tin of something unidentifiable, or no meal at all. That’s where airline food expert Nik Loukas comes in. He’s created the blog Inflight Feed, which provides future flyers with a database and reviews of the culinary offerings at each airline.
CNN reports that Loukas has been working in the airline industry for 15 years. Over that time, he’s visited 44 countries and circled the world 17 times. On his blog, Loukas records his in-flight experience with each airline he travels on, photographing the meals provided and ranking food quality and customer service. His airline database, meanwhile, lists exactly what you can expect to be served on each flight: He not only notes whether you can expect a free meal, but uploads scans of in-flight menus wherever possible.
Loukas tells CNN that his favorite in-flight meals are those offered in first class on Singapore Airlines (he was served lobster thermidor and caviar), as well as the less expensive meal options offered by Osaka-based Peach and Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines. He explains that, even when airline meals are a little lackluster, he’s impressed by the amount of work that goes into serving food mid-air. “I love learning all about how the food is selected for passengers to eat, how it's delivered to aircraft and everything in between,” he explains. "It's quite a logistics-driven industry, and if passengers only knew half the things that airlines go through in order to get a meal to them in-flight to eat, they would be astounded."