Fiji Airways switches to better meals

Makes on-board experience more appealing with better food, entertainment, offerings and service

RACHNA LAL and RANOBA BAOA
SUVA

Fiji Airways is overhauling its entire on-board flight experience. This is being rolled out in stages; some effective immediately, some in a few months time.
The one which would make many people happy is the change in the inflight meals.
The ill-received “lunchbox” is being replaced by hot meals which actually have a real and much better taste.
Fiji Airways managing director/chief executive, Stefan Pichler, said their meals have been generally referred to as “poor quality, choice & meal presentation”.
“Our new menu design reflects time of departure, length of flight, a more balanced meal to better meet customer needs by route,” he said.
The other changes are in the inflight entertainment which is now all free, a redesigned inflight magazine and better duty free product offering.
Cost of changes
Whilst one may think introducing new meals as well as the other suit changes would cost Fiji Airways more money, Mr Pichler does not think so.
He said this was all about doing things smarter.
“For example the “Bula box” cost more than the tray which we have replaced it with,” he said.
Mr Pichler said this was because they were producing the box and then throwing it away while the tray gets reused.
“We have considerable savings changing from the box to the tray. We have used all these savings to upgrade the food,” he said.
As for the free inflight entertainment now, Mr Pichler said they were hardly making any money out of this any ways. “The inflight entertainment will not cost us much as we hardly anyone was paying for it,” he said.
Feedback: rachnal@fijisun.com.fj
ALSO READ
Fiji Airways new meals, other changes >P14