No joke: Inflight meals delivered to your home

Barry Neild, CNN
2 minute read
Updated 10:40 AM EDT, Fri October 3, 2014
German company Air Food One is running an eight-week trial delivering inflight food -- including this steak dish -- to people's homes.
Air food at ground level —
German company Air Food One is running an eight-week trial delivering inflight food -- including this steak dish -- to people's homes.
Courtesy Air Food One
Company spokesman Max Thinius says the meals, such as this pasta dish, are "astonishingly OK."
Inflight flavors —
Company spokesman Max Thinius says the meals, such as this pasta dish, are "astonishingly OK."
Courtesy Air Food One
Thinius says the meals, which include cod and risotto, are better than those served in business class because they're not preheated, but are cooked from fresh by customers.
Better than business class —
Thinius says the meals, which include cod and risotto, are better than those served in business class because they're not preheated, but are cooked from fresh by customers.
Courtesy Air Food One
Busy families and business travelers who don't want to prepare and cook meals are among customers for Air Food One fare, including chicken in pepper sauce.
Hungry for convenience —
Busy families and business travelers who don't want to prepare and cook meals are among customers for Air Food One fare, including chicken in pepper sauce.
Courtesy Air Food One
There's no indication yet if the service will be expanded beyond its trial period around Cologne and Dusseldorf in Germany.
Up in the air —
There's no indication yet if the service will be expanded beyond its trial period around Cologne and Dusseldorf in Germany.
Courtesy Air Food One
In-flight meals delivered to your home

Story highlights

"Air Food One" makes weekly deliveries of airline meals to addresses in Germany

Meals inspired by Lufthansa business class menus can be heated at home

The meals are "astonishingly OK," says company spokesman Max Thinius

CNN  — 

Strange though it might seem, there are people who love inflight meals.

Stranger still, there are people who love inflight meals so much they want to eat them at home.

That’s the premise behind a new venture that’s begun making deliveries of airline-style dinners to addresses in Germany.

“Some of our customers called us and said we love to eat fresh food, but we don’t want to have convenience food,” says Max Thinius of online produce retailer Allyouneed.com.

To answer their call, in August the company teamed with LSG Sky Chefs, the catering arm of German airline Lufthansa to launch Air Food One.

Still in an eight-week trial period that Thinius describes as its “pre-pre-pilot stage,” the service currently makes once-weekly deliveries in Germany’s Dusseldorf and Cologne regions of meals inspired by Lufthansa’s business class menus.

Menus include steak filets, chicken in pepper sauce and fried cod and retail at about $13. There are also vegetarian options.

Thinius says the meals appeal to working parents with kids to feed and to busy business travelers who perhaps don’t want to go cold turkey after several days of tucking into delicious airplane food.

MORE: Is inflight fine dining possible?

Menu testing

Air Food One’s meals are better than the inflight equivalent, he insists, because they’re delivered fresh for customers to heat up themselves instead of being precooked and packed into the metal crates used by commercial aviation caterers.

There’s also the advantage of being able to eat them with real metal cutlery and – depending on the customer’s domestic setup – without being repeatedly jostled by the person in the next seat.

“They’re astonishingly OK,” says Thinius. “I didn’t think one could do such stuff that you heat and eat it, but it works.

“It’s not as good as if you cook yourself – unless you can’t cook properly – but it’s OK.”

The pilot service appears to be going well so far, he adds, but it’s still too early to tell if it’ll be rolled out further afield.

“If it will be successful we will of course expand, if it’s not, we won’t. There’s a lot of things we have to test, not just if the meals are liked by the customers, but also the logistics.”

So for the time being, the rest of us will have to suffer the inconvenience of long-haul travel if we’re hungry for inflight flavors.

Or we could just settle for a sandwich.

Would you eat airline food at home? Let us know in the comments below.