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Gone are the days when airline food meant inedible slop. Offerings are now from top chefs, and menus include things like Atlantic lobster with curried coconut sauce, or Moroccan chicken tagine with lemon, cauliflower, and couscous. With these options, it's easy to see why passengers may consider asking for seconds—but is that even allowed? And, if so, how do you explain yourself once you've pressed the call button?
Stephan Segraves, a Portland-based frequent flier and co-host of the air travel podcast, Dots, Lines, and Destinations,” isn’t shy when it comes to requesting seconds. “The times I have [asked for an extra helping] in economy were because I was coming straight from work, usually running late for the flight and with no time to grab something in the terminal,” he tells Condé Nast Traveler. “I would ask the crew for an extra if they had any when they were done with service. They usually were a little surprised, and one even said, ‘You sure you want seconds of this?’ But all obliged.”
Cabin crew have a number of lists for each flight, at least one of which details what passengers in what seats may have ordered in advance, and what the catering company has stocked for beverage and meal service for each class. This is practical—passengers with dietary requirements get the special meals they requested—as well as helpful for the airline’s sustainability management. Cabin crew may choose to eat any unopened meals, but at the end of a flight, all perishable food, touched or untouched, is trashed in accordance with health regulations.
“Aircraft are normally catered to the exact expected passenger count,” Nik Loukas, veteran airline catering industry professional and founder of the InflightFeed blog, tells Condé Nast Traveler. “This is because airlines are trying to minimize their in-flight catering wastage levels." That said, Loukas notes that even he’s not above requesting more: “I've asked for seconds a few times—I know it sounds kind of weird asking for airline food seconds—but sometimes I've been quite hungry, or the portions were small. I just politely ask the crew, and I’ve yet to be met with a ‘no’ answer.”
If a big appetite is a recurring theme for your flights, then it might be time to look into packing your own snacks or upgrading your meal altogether. Some airlines, including ANA, Air France, Austrian, KLM, and British Airways, offer larger or more gourmet meals for a fee, such as a dinner of Wiener schnitzel, with cucumber and potato salad, mousse au chocolat, and fresh bread all for €15 ($17.80). Or, with Air France’s “Tradition” menu, economy class passengers can pay to upgrade and enjoy an enhanced meal, prepared by a chef like Jean Imbert, proprietor of Paris’s L’Acajou restaurant and a Top Chef winner.
For some insight on how to go about asking for extra in-flight meals, we polled the economy class cabin crew on a recent Emirates flight between the Maldives and Dubai. The attendants agreed that the moment to ask is at end of the meal service, after everyone has been served. That way, there’s no chance of your request potentially depriving other passengers of their meal choices. Asking quietly is appreciated, but there's no need to corner flight attendants in the galley to do so; ring the call bell, so the attendants know your seat number and can return to pick up your trash.
“It does happen, and I’ll try to give more, but sometimes we run out,” says flight attendant Marja, who declined to have her last name printed. “If we have many more of one type of meal, like the sweet and sour chicken on today’s flight, then I’ll push that more. Having no more of a meal type is upsetting for passengers, so I try not to run out. But when everyone is eating, that worry is gone and I'm happy to make passengers even happier.”
Having a happy flight is the least a traveler can hope for from an airline, so go ahead and ask for another round of the salted chocolate pudding—just hope no one else had the same idea before you.