American Has 3 New Snacks In Coach, And You Get To Pick One On Each Flight

American Airlines brings back snacks and beverage service in coach on Tuesday, June 1. Alcohol was supposed to return, too, but the airline decided economy passengers are too unruly for that.

The coach snacks are Biscoff cookies, pretzels, and Love Corn.

  • American is stocking three different coach snacks on board flights that are 250 miles or longer.
  • They will rotate these, offering two choices on each flight.
  • And customers get to pick just one.

I originally became addicted to Biscoff cookies flying Westair (United Express) in the mid-1990s. I never actually purchased any Biscoff myself until it was a qualifying partner as part of the US Airways Grand Slam promotion. That’s how I discovered Biscoff spread.


American introduced Biscoff and pretzels in 2016

In a 2007 cost-cutting move United reduced the size of Biscoff cookies they gave out. Maybe that’s how the cookies became more associated with Delta (and earning Delta miles buying them couldn’t have hurt, either). Well, American Airlines serves them too.

But I’ve never heard of Love Corn before.

Here’s what strikes me as odd about how snacks are being managed. Flight attendants are going to have to ask each passenger what they want, repeat themselves, and offer explanation of the process. What is each snack, that they have to choose one, and no they cannot have both.

That’s a whole lot of flight attendant-passenger interaction, repeated out across 172 customers onboard and Boeing 737-800 or 196 customers on an Airbus A321neo. It seems like if they were genuinely trying to reduce passenger-flight attendant interaction they would either (1) give the same single snack item to everyone, or (2) give everyone both.

While they’re increasing the flight attendant – passenger interaction footprint, somethng that does make sense inside a aircraft cabin at altitude given protections and now that almost everyone can get vaccinated – the reason American ostensibly won’t offer hot meals in first class on cross country flights is because use of the oven somehow entails Covid-19 risk, and they need to reduce flight attendant-passenger interaction. (Even stranger still, there’s Covid risk in hot food on a DC – Los Angeles flight, but suddenly flying New York – Los Angeles allows for hot food. It must be something to do with the UV rays bombarding the aircraft in New York airspace or something.)

It’s great that snacks are returning to coach. And Love Corn is certainly going to be getting its marketing tie-in’s worth introducing its snacks to a whole host of new people.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Once again American has shown to have brand supremacy with its world class gourmet elite offerings & dining experiences in every cabin
    Take a bow American such extraordinary generosity.Thank You! :);)

  2. JFK-LAX is longer flight, than DCA-LAX. Maybe more 1st class pax then DC?

  3. Lord, our poor sad American Airlines 🙁

    Our upgrades just cleared on the DCA-DSM nonstop. Clearing out up 500 mile upgrade chits Return upgrade looks good no sold seats in 1st 😉
    Maybe get to use the new gate area. We’ll just get a sit down lunch and forget the Admirals Club since not paying the CC AF (Smileup, baby) Just buying 1st class early now for domestic flights 🙂

  4. I think that it’s nice that snacks are available but do we really need snacks for a 250-mile flight? It’s just stressful watching the FA’s scramble around to dish it out and then run around picking up trash. Just leave me alone for 30 minutes unless requested. I know this sounds negative, sorry but I think we can survive an hour flight without 4 ounces of diet coke and a giant ice cube. Plus how are we supposed to observe FA union mask rules while snacking. Won’t we get in trouble with the warden?

  5. Recently flew on American Airlines from Fresno layover in Arizona then on the Grand Junction Colorado flight attendant was very rude we flew 1st class and had to ask for something to drink it was not offered Every time I tried to eat something she was on me to hurry up and put my mouth back on I could see she was in training but she was rude We pay a lot of money to fly 1st class and be treated that way Not good

  6. Why are pretzels even in this rotation? Does anyone actually wait them? I feel like they are the ultimate outcome of cost cutting with no relationship to customer satisfaction. Why not just hand out some small rocks?

  7. Omg ur so dumb.. delta ha multiple snacks. No one complains. and it includes pretzels
    But aa has options and you all lose ur shit

  8. No GARY the airline didn’t decide PAX were too unruly for that ! They should them !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  9. Pish! I just flew 4 American flights last week, my booking system at work forcing me over Delta due to cost restrictions: super full flights and no snacks or drinks. Great for news, not so much for travelers. Each flights was well over an hour long.

  10. Back to school third-grade math problem: An American Airlines coach class passenger on a three-hour flight opens a 1.6-ounce (45 g) pouch of Love Corn premium crunchy corn snack. If they eat one kernel every three minutes, how long will they be permitted to keep their face mask off their face?

  11. After years of having to decline cookies and pretzels, that they’re actually considering a vegan gluten free snack to be made available makes me super excited! Love corn is genuinely delicious and I’m thrilled I can get .49 cents of corn with my plane tickets lol

  12. Save the money on cheap snacks and no charge for luggage, it works for Southwest.

  13. And you can only have one snack item? Is AA that frugal? It seems so. It’s almost like they are punishing people for flying economy. Shame on them. This is one of many reasons why AA has such a negative image & continues to be in the bottom of the barrel.
    It’s also interesting to note, there’s no mention of bringing back “BOB” fresh food items on their longer domestic flights in Y.
    AA needs to wake up & consider their paying main cabin passengers.

  14. American Airlines service has really gotten bad.. you know when the Airline is desperate when they Jam everyone on the plane with the pandemic going on. People are jammed together like they are sardines jammed in a can, so sad.

  15. Wow, some people are never satisfied for anything even if they are being treated nice, cheers for Southwest thank you

  16. I flew AA Dallas to San Diego. A plastic bag containing a 4oz bottle of water and a small packet of pretzels was dropped onto my lap (didn’t have time to put my tray out). FA said nothing, looked like she was being forced to deal with serial killers.

  17. The covid -19 excuse to lessen interaction of passenger and flight attendant doesnt hold water and it never has. These unions that are supporting and pushing this, are effectively pushing the end of the flight attendant profession and don’t even know it.

  18. 3 choices? Lol. Not yet, they aren’t! Just flew 4 segments in the last 4 days. Got handed pretzels (as did everyone else around me) along with a drink of choice. Nobody’s askin’ nuttin’!

  19. You are all programmed sheep. Remember when we actually used to get a meal? Now we have a choice of a small bag of pretzels or some stupid cookie. These airlines suck. America going down the drain. The worst airports in the world as well.

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