Commercial Aviation
COMMERCIAL AVIATION VOCABULARY
• Types of services
• Special meals
• Offering meals and drinks
Types of service
Lunch or dinner service
• Lunch or dinner are similar.
• Both services have a small
salad, dressing, the main
course, a dessert, a roll of
bread and butter.
• They are served in a tray with
a cup for hot drinks and
silverware wrapped with a
napkin.
• Sometimes, airlines offer a
variety of choices between
international food and some
local dishes.
Types of service
Business class services are different
from economy class services.
B/C service is offered in a tray with
white tablecloth, ceramic dinnerware
and glasses.
Every element for a B/C service is
carefully selected and is of the
highest quality.
Special meals
A special meal is an alternative meal ordered in advance by
passengers for different reasons, mainly medical or religious.
Airlines request 24 – 72 hours’ notice to have the meal available.
Sometimes special meals are served first, before the cabin service.
There is a wide variety of special meals but not every airline has all of
them available. The selection may vary depending on the flight route,
region, continent, cabin, flight time, etc.
All SPML have a code to be recognized by the airline staff.
The flight crew usually receive meals labelled for pilot and first officer.
They are given different foods to reduce the risk of food poisoning
and that both become ill at the same time.
Special meal codes
Child meal – CHML
Baby meal – BBML
Kosher meal – KSML
Vegetarian and vegan meal – VGML/VLML
Diabetic meal – DBML
Gluten free – GFML
Low salt (low sodium) – LSML
Listen to the announcement. Answer True (T) or False (F)
We’ll shortly begin our in-flight drink service.
We have a selection of complimentary hot
and cold beverages including coffee, tea, and
soft drinks. Beer, wine, and cocktails are
available. Exact change is always appreciated.
As the trolleys pass through the cabin, please
keep the aisles clear.
Listen to a flight attendant serving drinks to seven passengers.
Put the drinks in the order you hear them asked for
Offering drinks and meals
When offering meals and drinks, there are some important things
that we need to consider.
We will serve the meal first and then the drinks.
Every drink must be served with a paper napkin.
We will start from window to aisle, but keeping the order: kids,
women, men.
Some problems with meal service
Special meals not on board.
Missing items for service.
Wrong service.
Delayed flight and change of type of service (is not longer breakfast
time).
Hot meal service and not ovens or not enough ovens in the aircraft.
Turbulence that affects the service.
Severe turbulence that throw meals or mess it before been served.
Let’s practice
Work in groups and choose 2 problems with meal
service and give a solution for each of them.
Problems with meal service
Sometimes there are more passengers than meals on board.
Usually, catering companies can arrive on time to fix the problem.
Other times, Passenger Service agents need to find paxs that sign a
form stating that they accept traveling without a meal because
waiting for those meals will take a long time.
Those forms are handed to the cabin crew, so they can identify the
paxs for the meal service. The cabin crew can offer complimentary
beverages if they are available.
These situation is not very common. It can happen for different
reasons, like a flight cancellation and the relocation of those
passengers in another flight that is ready to depart.
Dealing with problems with meal service
Apologized
Explain the situation
Offer an alternative
Check with passenger everything is fine
