There are a small number of airlines that offer inflight chefs, who generally help with preparing meals in first and business class. In this post, I’d like to talk about that in a bit more detail — which airlines have inflight chefs, and is this just a marketing gimmick, or is there some substance to it?
Which airlines have onboard chefs?
To start, let’s talk about which airlines actually have inflight chefs. Nowadays you’ll find them on select flights of the following airlines:
- Austrian Airlines
- Garuda Indonesia
- Saudia Airlines
- Turkish Airlines
Back in the day, Etihad Airways and Gulf Air also had inflight chefs, but they’ve been eliminated in recent years to cut costs, so that’s no longer offered. For example, below is a promotional video that Etihad made back in the day about its inflight chef program (which is no longer available).
Are onboard chefs a gimmick, or what do they do?
Who are these onboard chefs for airlines offering this service, and how do their duties differ from those of regular flight attendants? Generally speaking, onboard chefs are specially hired based on their culinary experience, so they have different job experience than “standard” flight attendants.
However, they are also generally trained as flight attendants (in terms of safety and service), so you’ll usually see them in the normal flight attendant uniform for takeoff and landing, and then they’ll put on the chef’s uniform for the meal services. But is there really such a thing as an onboard “chef,” or is this all marketing?
The onboard chef is doing nothing that flight attendants couldn’t otherwise do. On airlines without onboard chefs, you typically have flight attendants working the “galley” position, meaning they’re not actually going to be in the aisle during the meal service, but rather will be in the galley preparing meals, so that the other flight attendants can serve them to passengers.
So there’s not some kitchen with open flames for the airlines that have onboard chefs. Most things on planes are just reheated, with few exceptions. For example, some airlines prepare eggs onboard. But that’s even done on airlines without onboard chefs, like Cathay Pacific and Lufthansa.
Fundamentally, the onboard chef position is marketing, but I think the bigger takeaway is that typically when an airline has onboard chefs, they also invest more in the overall meal service. For example, all business class meals aren’t created equal.
On some airlines, it’s clear that food is catered as it’s to be presented, and all the crew does is heat it up (the below picture is from EgyptAir).
Meanwhile on other airlines, food is catered in aluminum containers, and then the crew plates it (the below picture is from Turkish Airlines).
As you can see, the presentation can be vastly different. So typically when there’s an onboard chef in business or first class, it means that food is plated onboard, and that they might be adding some cute touches to the presentation. Obviously food might also taste better if the individual ingredients are first heated and then separately plated together, rather than everything being heated on one plate.
I generally operate under the assumption that if an airline has an onboard chef, it also has top notch catering. However, there are airlines without onboard chefs that have excellent catering.
Bottom line
Several airlines offer onboard chefs, which is a unique concept that certainly gets passengers talking. Onboard chefs aren’t doing something that couldn’t otherwise be done. In other words, they’re not cooking with open flames or making your food from scratch.
Instead, it’s a cool opportunity for airlines to add a special touch to a meal service. The biggest takeaway from an airline having an onboard chef is that they invest more than average in their food and beverage offerings, so across the board I’ve found airlines with onboard chefs to offer among the best food in the skies.
I don’t think that’s specifically because of the onboard chefs, but rather because of airlines’ commitments to their soft product. Meanwhile there are also plenty of airlines that have exceptional catering despite not having onboard chefs.
If you’ve had an onboard chef on a flight, what was your experience like?
