7 Airlines With The Worst Food, According To Frequent Flyers

For frequent flyers, the sad reality is that paying exorbitant amounts for a plane ticket does not guarantee a quality meal. Of course, there's always the question of, "Why take the risk when you can just bring your own food or eat beforehand?" Well, we complain because in life, we expect quality when we pay large amounts for a thing. And, aside from an airport itself, airline food is arguably the best example of overpriced dining in the world.

Does it have to be bad? While we're not experts on what it takes to prepare meals for flight, we certainly think airplane food can taste better. Unlike traditional dining establishments that prepare food in kitchens, airlines partner with catering companies like LSG Sky Chefs and SkyDine. These companies create large-scale standardized meals, which can include popular brands or little-known ones.

The sheer quantity of meals that must be produced might explain why they often resemble something served in a high school cafeteria, rather than food a fully grown person would eat. We hope that if you have horror stories from eating on a plane, this list of airlines with the worst food, according to frequent flyers, won't trigger any flashbacks.

In 1936, United Airlines became the first-ever airline to put a flight kitchen on a plane, with the goal of offering hot meal options to passengers. Menus from the era included lobster cocktails, melba toast, pigeon, roast larded filet or beef, baked Alaska, and even cigars and cigarettes. Each dish was typically created by a chef from Switzerland, which at the time was a hub for some of the world's foremost culinary talent. Not only were passengers told where their dishes originated, but also which chefs prepared them. Fine dining options like this were the norm until the 1950s.

Suffice it to say, today's dining experience aboard United Airlines is a far cry from its introduction. Whether flying economy, business, or first class, fans have a lot to say about the food, and much of it isn't friendly. One person, who was served a breakfast plate that didn't live up to its product image, complained on Reddit about undercooked bacon and hash browns. To which someone replied, "Just flew from Honolulu to Boston and back (LA stop on way up, SFO on way back), and every meal was absolutely disgusting," followed by a string of similar grievances.

A food-fluencer posted an entire diatribe on Facebook about his experience in Business Class, saying, "The food on United is disgusting. You can get better food in a hospital." That said, United is no stranger to being in customer crosshairs when it comes to food. You can find complaints about business class meals going all the way back to 2017. 

In 2004, when Air France and KLM merged into a single aviation group, it may have helped both companies business-wise, but since both are serviced by LSG Sky Chefs, it did little to improve the food offerings. "Recently flew Air France economy and the food was absolutely ghastly," a person commented on a Reddit thread about the worst airline food. They added that it would've been better if they had been told the food had run out. On another thread, an economy passenger shared a picture of their pre-arrival meal, which only consisted of a basic raw cheese sandwich with a little bit of butter on it. Which, according to most of the replies, is clearly a step down. Someone even recalled a time when Air France attendants "used to walk around with a basket of freshly-baked baguettes."

The complaints don't end there, either. On the forum Airliners, someone shared their shockingly bad experience in business class, saying, "The first meal on CPT-CDG was literally 3 tiny pieces of bone dry chicken breast, a few slivers of carrot and courgetti – no sauce, nothing." According to YouTube traveler Nonstop Dan, first class on Air France also leaves much to be desired, despite its glowing reputation. Not only did the menu not include an allergens list, but the flight attendant screwed up Dan's specialty order and served him "fresh" berries with mold on them.

British food is notoriously polarizing, so it's unsurprising that people complain about the food served on British Airways. From TikTok and Instagram to Reddit and Facebook, you'll find lots of posts, videos, and threads of people expressing frustration. Rufus Daily, a TikTok influencer, fumed in a video about the food he was served during a recent flight. The violation in question? A pre-packaged tandoori chicken sandwich that, apparently, only contained half of a sandwich. "Maybe I'd be happy if I were a prisoner of war," Rufus cheekily said.

The gluten-free plane meals aren't much better, either. In an Instagram video shared by Matt Bzdel, a gluten-free content maker, he details a recent experience on British Airways when he was given a cauliflower, corn, and quinoa salad with a side of sliced strawberries, which didn't look altogether bad. However, the meal randomly included two literal leaves of lettuce without any dressing, and a pack of butter, despite there being no bread present.

Now, you're probably thinking Bzdel is out of his mind to expect any airline to provide good gluten-free options. But the general consensus among British Airways customers seems to be that food quality has declined in recent years. "London to Miami and they served a 'chicken stroganoff' which I wouldn't feed to a dog," said one person on Reddit. 

Unfortunately, Delta isn't safe from the perception that the food served on U.S. airlines is the worst in the world. Speaking of "worst," the World's Worst Food Blogger blogged about their experience during a flight from Milwaukee to San Francisco, when they opened one of Delta's signature snack boxes only to find bland, chemical-tasting bruschetta spread and cardboard-like pita chips. They ultimately gave Delta a 2 out of 5 and swore to never order the snack box again. Their story echoes that of many Delta passengers, who have added to a long list of complaints about the onboard food. From overly-bready "hot pockets" with little to no filling and sub sandwich rolls with barely any slices of roast beef to questionable pizza, it might be wise to avoid ordering food on Delta altogether.

You know something is off when even Platinum Medallion members complain, like the author of this Facebook post, who was served inedible chicken meatballs, mashed potatoes, and green beans. "A Testament that Americans have NO food Culture at all!" they vented. If giving American cuisine a bad name isn't bad enough, Delta has just announced that it is ending food service for flights shorter than 350 miles, which means you can say goodbye to those iconic Lotus Biscoff cookies and free sodas.

From cold food to freezer-burned ice cream and more, AA's food offerings are in desperate need of a glow-up. At least that's what frequent flyers say. "The aircraft was modern and the cabin crew were fine. However, the 10 hour flight was spoiled by the virtually inedible food," is how Fay R. kicked off their TripAdvisor review of American Airlines. Indeed, 10 hours is a long time to endure bad food. The disappointing occasion was marked with a lukewarm chicken dinner meal that included mushy veggies, tasteless salad, and a rock-hard bread roll. And first class isn't much better, according to View from the Wing's Gary Leff, who shared a picture of the burger — if you can call it that — he was served, which looked closer to a thrown-together something-or-other instead of a first class-worthy sammie.

Now granted, based on our ranking, AA isn't the worst when it comes to airline food. It's pretty middling and not wholly awful, but also not anything you'd write home about. Nonstop Dan, the traveling content maker who reviewed Air France above, gave AA an even worse score. In a Facebook video, Dan shows an arugula salad he was served, which consisted of a pile of arugula, a blob of red pepper paste, roasted eggplant that looked slightly undercooked, and a random pile of capers to the side. Something is wrong when a pretzel roll is the best part of the meal.

You'd think that one of the world's largest airlines would nail the food menu, but you'd probably be disappointed to find out that isn't the case. The complaints about Lufthansa go back as far as 10 years, like one left on TripAdvisor by a man who spent nine weeks with his wife traveling economy throughout Europe. "The cheapest quality, poorly prepared meals we had ever been served," he said. In the replies, someone aptly pointed out that many airlines use the same catering company. Lufthansa, for example, is serviced by LSG Sky Chefs, which also serves many of the airlines on this list.

Of course, you're probably thinking, "That was a long time ago, so things may have improved." Well, LSG Sky Chefs still services Lufthansa, and people still complain about the food. In our ranking of airlines with the absolute best quality meals, Lufthansa narrowly avoided the bottom spot. Not necessarily due to its food offerings, which are actually better than most, but because of how expensive items are compared to their quality. What's more, in a recent Reddit thread, someone shared an image of a breakfast meal that only featured "One rice cake, margarine, industrial jam, 3 pieces of fruit in a cup." They said that being awakened from a deep sleep made the offense even worse.

Frequent flyers aren't very fond of the food selection on Qantas. And it's not just the food; people also complain about horrible customer service. That's evident in this Instagram video by brisbanefoodlovers that began with, "This is a meal [I] hope to never eat again." They were given a noticeably greasy chicken curry that they begged the airline to stop serving. The post garnered quite a response from other customers, who collectively joined in to share their bad experiences. 

On Reddit, someone criticized the breakfast, saying, "The hot breakfast on the way to [Sydney] was probably the worst meal I've ever had on a plane." Though, to be fair, they said the return flight breakfast hit the spot. A passenger shared a video on another Reddit thread from their trip to Jakarta, of the "disgraceful business class food" they received. "The chicken was so dry after several attempts [at] using my cutlery, I gave up and left it untouched," they wrote.

And if that isn't awful enough, people also complain about the food in the Qantas business lounge. According to Yahoo! News, someone recounted a particularly horrific experience when they were allegedly served a pile of bones that was supposed to be ... who knows what. "This airline has truly gone to the dogs," they wrote in the caption. The complaint went so viral that Qantas had to issue a statement acknowledging the issue.

To determine which airlines frequent flyers say have the worst food, we scoured Reddit threads, comment sections on various social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, personal blogs and vlogs of frequent flyers, and the lesser-known air travel-centric forum Airliner.

We also sourced reviews from TripAdvisor and content makers on YouTube. In each case, we relied on an aggregate of reviews that share the same or similar sentiment about the experience of dining on these airlines.