Qantas has temporarily stopped serving in-flight meals and most drinks on domestic services, due to the COVID-19 situation.
Instead, Qantas passengers will now be served only a complimentary bottle of water and a snack on domestic flights, until further notice. This includes Business class passengers.
Notification about this change is being given to Qantas customers with upcoming domestic bookings when logging into “Manage Booking” on the Qantas website. The notice says:
As part of our response to the evolving Coronavirus situation, we’re making some temporary changes to our inflight service. We will no longer be serving meals on domestic or regional flights. Our crew will continue to offer a complimentary bottle of water and a snack on these services.
We appreciate your understanding.
Qantas normally serves hot and cold in-flight meals in Economy class on domestic services at designated breakfast, lunch and dinner times, and on all longer domestic flights to/from Perth and Darwin.
Virgin Australia has made a similar change to its domestic in-flight catering in response to the coronavirus situation. Virgin has eliminated complimentary snacks for Economy class passengers, but will continue serving meals in Business class. Economy passengers on Virgin Australia can still purchase snacks from the onboard retail menu.
Qantas did not respond to a request for comment.
From Friday 3 April, Qantas is also switching off in-flight wifi and in-flight entertainment.
Recently flew from Sydney to Perth with Qantas, upgraded to business class ,2 bottles of water and 2 cheese and biscuits snacks for the 4 hr flight. A lot of people left hungry as they were not advised prior to the flight like myself. Plane was a winglet and not a lot of empty seats in economy, so much for social separation
I had a similar experience in business class flying from Brisbane to Melbourne on Sunday 29 March. I had been visiting my father in Caloundra and had arrived at the airport early, hoping to grab a bite to eat in the lounge as well as the meal on the flight home. Neither were available and there was no notification from Qantas prior to the flight that the lounge would be closed, let alone no food available. The Qantas crew were great and were able to supply me with a few extra packets of cheese and biscuits and another bottle of… Read more »
A vegetarian snack option would be appreciated if Qantas are going to provide in-flight snacks. Also, what’s the point of being told to social distance while boarding, yet we’re then all crammed shoulder to shoulder for the flight?
Certainly wouldn’t have upgraded to business with no food.I assume this isn’t a joke
The article certainly wasn’t a joke at the time, but it was published two years ago during Australia’s first nationwide coronavirus lockdown. Meals returned to Qantas flights a few months later.