Cheese and crackers are now dinner? (Rant)

[kangarooflyer88]

I am curious how meal requests are handled for domestic flights? For instance, if you say you are allergic to nuts or are vegetarian, would that mean that Qantas will have to load a special meal on for you? And if so, would that be more substantial than what is offered to the rest of the cabin?

As an aside, I'm flying business class on Friday between SYD and BNE (QF550). What's the over/under on the meal being served being more substantial than a Bunnings Sausage Sizzle?

-RooFlyer88

 

[DC3]

I am curious how meal requests are handled for domestic flights? For instance, if you say you are allergic to nuts …

Keep the EpiPen within reach.

 

[justinbrett]

No, not ALL; the expression was 'Except for retirees or people with very young kids, few Aussies of working aged would typically be sitting down to dinner at 5:30pm'. Grammatically, that says that retirees as a class typically eat early and I'm just pointing out that as a generalisation, by someone who I believe isn't retired and possibly doesn't mix with that many retirees, is incorrect. I am retired and almost all of my friends and neighbours are retired (none of who travel much) and I know (from visiting etc) that most would sit down to dinner at about 7pm, often later in summer,

The OP I suspect was thinking of nursing homes, which is not the same as retirees.

It was just the casual stereotyping of a class of people, by someone not part of that group and which is demonstrably wrong that warranted correcting. Most of all, it was simply unnecessary to make the point that dinner on Qantas starts too early (which I agree with), but just slipped in there for some reason.

Here endeth my sermon; its gin & tonic time.

Typically / Generally / however you want to say it, I think you’re trying to argue against a well accepted stereotype. While we might not be in that group ourselves we all have parents and family in that group and in my case the stereotype holds true. If you and your Tasmanian friends don’t fit in the stereotype good for you!

I do however distinguish between older people and retirees, as you can be retired in your 40s or even earlier.

I think 5.30pm is a perfectly acceptable time to serve dinner on an aircraft (because it will be after 6 by the time you eat). The issue is the end time.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Perhaps I am missing something here but isn't supper and dinner the same thing?

‘supper’ is a light evening meal, that’s all. You could have had an exceptionally large lunch, and just have a supper (rather than dinner) for you evening meal.

Then of course not to be confused with ‘dinner’ in the middle of the day

 

[RooFlyer]

I do however distinguish between older people and retirees, as you can be retired in your 40s or even earlier.

Exactly.

Typically / Generally / however you want to say it, I think you’re trying to argue against a well accepted stereotype.

Arguing against a stereotype - maybe; that its well accepted - possibly, but only by those without much experience with the retired cohort outside their family I suggest. Yeah, I was in my 20s, 30, 40s once and I based my opinion of 'oldies' (as we called them) on my observations of my grandparents. Not terribly positive. But now I am retired (since I was 58) and mix with many retirees (both locally and around the country and around the world ) , I can see that things are vastly different.

Stereotypes are often negative I think (race xx_X has this characteristic; religion YYYY does such-and-such; young people spend all their time on their phones, or are rude etc), and if they are 'well accepted', then I'm happy to argue against them too.

In this case it was a casual throw-away comment I think more born of lack of broad knowledge and experience than anything negative, but when stated as absolute, not 'I think', I reckon it can be challenged if at odds with one's actual personal experience and knowledge.

Then of course not to be confused with ‘dinner’ in the middle of the day

Certainly the meal in the middle of the day at Christmas was/is 'Christmas dinner' in my family. Roast goose etc etc. But I wouldn't assert that as an absolute for the rest of the country.

 

[justinbrett]

Arguing against a stereotype - maybe; that its well accepted - possibly, but only by those without much experience with the retired cohort outside their family I suggest. Yeah, I was in my 20s, 30, 40s once and I based my opinion of 'oldies' (as we called them) on my observations of my grandparents. Not terribly positive. But now I am retired (since I was 58) and mix with many retirees (both locally and around the country and around the world ) , I can see that things are vastly different.

Stereotypes are often negative I think (race xx_X has this characteristic; religion YYYY does such-and-such; young people spend all their time on their phones, or are rude etc), and if they are 'well accepted', then I'm happy to argue against them too.

In this case it was a casual throw-away comment I think more born of lack of broad knowledge and experience than anything negative, but when stated as absolute, not 'I think', I reckon it can be challenged if at odds with one's actual personal experience and knowledge.

Is saying older people tend to eat early and go to bed early a negative statement? I don't think so. I know many young people who do it too. Work generally restricts people eating early even if they would otherwise choose to.

I do know some older people who are night owls but they're generally married to early risers and still have dinner early.

Just because you are in that age group doesn't make your data points any more valid than ours. They're all data points. But it is a well accepted stereotype, whether you accept it or not, but most others do. Plenty of google searches will give you an answer to "why do seniors eat dinner early". When I googled "why do seniors eat dinner late" it gave me the same results explaining why many eat early.

As before, if you and your friends are breaking that stereotype, good for you!

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I think the discussion about when people eat is sort of off topic here. If I understand the original poster correctly, their concern is the continual enhancement of meal service on Qantas domestic flights. I think the concern here is that someday Qantas follows suit of most airlines globally and chucks out the concept of their being any amount of food (how insignificant) available on a complimentary basis.

Now I have not flown Qantas in the 90s and 2000s but I suspect the catering on board was considerably better in coach domestically such as a proper meal with appetizer, entree and desert and that over the years it has gotten pared back to the point where it is a pleasant surprise if you get quiche on a route like Sydney to Melbourne nevermind a full course meal. Perhaps some of that can be attributed to cost cutting and lack of premium competition domestically (one has to wonder if these enhancements would have occurred if Ansett or East-West was still around). And by the way, I don’t really care much about the meal, what I do care about out is Qantas ditching things like a free checked bag or lounge access on departure when flying coach as the Yanks have done over a decade ago or heaven forbid they move point and status accrual to an entirely revenue model as is the case for British Air

 

[JessicaTam]

AFFers often don’t wish to remain on-topic. It’s become a bit of a tradition.

[mod hat]
A large number of posts discussing seniors vs retirees and their eating times is off topic and have been removed.

Other posts containing personal attacks have also been removed.

Do not keep presenting the same argument over and over after your original post. I draw members attention to these parts of the AFF T&Cs:

• If you feel another member is attacking or being aggressive towards you, report their message to the AFF Moderation team. Do not respond publicly. This simply continues the back and forth that derails topics and makes them uncomfortable for other users. If someone attacks you and you respond with an attack, you may be disciplined regardless of who initiated the conflict.

and:

• Be courteous and respect your fellow members. To be clear, personal attacks, aggressive messages, and passive-aggressive behaviour is unacceptable. If you take particular issue with another member and are unable to reply in a civilised and constructive way to their posts, you should ignore that member.

Further breaches will not be tolerated.
[/mod hat]

 

[VPS]

I am curious how meal requests are handled for domestic flights? For instance, if you say you are allergic to nuts or are vegetarian, would that mean that Qantas will have to load a special meal on for you? And if so, would that be more substantial than what is offered to the rest of the cabin?

As an aside, I'm flying business class on Friday between SYD and BNE (QF550). What's the over/under on the meal being served being more substantial than a Bunnings Sausage Sizzle?

-RooFlyer88

for me with a fish allergy you have to order vegan - vegan and vegetarian are lumped together so therefore you don't get butter and the rolls are like lead because they have to be dairy free. It's a right PITA although my TA was very good on my recent J Qatar flight and he organised and had loaded special meals for me but that's a first