Airline, Make Me a Sandwich

If you tend to get peckish in the air, try using Routehappy to search for your next flight. The company, which offers flight amenity data to online travel agencies, just added listings that detail whether you're able to get food on board.

Routehappy harvests the data from airline websites, global distribution systems, and traveler and airline interviews, the company's data research manager Jason Rabinowitz said. While many airlines have really been ramping up fresh food for sale within the U.S, they all have slightly different rules as to which flights it's offered on, making it a prime topic for a search engine. (The rules generally vary depending on flight length and time of day.)

Routehappy is a great example of how data aggregation and presentation can really change online experiences. All of Routehappy's data is available through either airlines' publicly facing websites or through travel agent systems. But it's often scattered, fractured, and hard to find.

"There's just so much nuance to this. It's so incredibly difficult for the average flier to figure out something as simple as, are they going to give us a sandwich on board or not," he said.

With more airlines offering Wi-Fi and seatback entertainment across their fleets, they're now trying to differentiate with food for sale, Rabinowitz said. Only Southwest and Spirit, of the large U.S. airlines, are staying out of the game.

"Over recent years, airlines have really been improving their game when it comes to food quality, quantity and selection," Rabinowitz said.

Routehappy isn't the only firm doing amenity aggregation. Tripadvisor's Seatguru, for instance, collects more detailed aircraft-by-aircraft seat data and gives food information that's in some ways more precise, but in other ways vaguer than Routehappy's. For instance, Seatguru tells you that American Airlines snack boxes cost $4 each, but leaves it up to you to know whether your specific flight fits within American's food-for-sale time restrictions.

For in-seat power, for instance, Routehappy just says "power (some rows)" where Seatguru forces you to figure out which airplane configuration you're flying on, but if you can figure that out, it specifies exactly which rows have power.

Routehappy's real strength is in presenting its data in a way which attractively merges in with flight search results from top online travel agencies like its customers Expedia and Google Flights. SeatGuru's plane-by-plane pages don't combine well with long lists of flight prices; you have to click through for the most detailed data, and you have to use SeatGuru's or TripAdvisor's sites to get there.

Drilling Down For a Good Meal
If you really want to be assured of getting a meal you like, you should probably still bring your own food. I've been on enough flights where they sold out of the meal I wanted to learn that lesson. It's especially important for people who request special dietary-restriction meals on international flights, Rabinowitz notes.

"Where things really do start to get a little haywire, is you have to keep your fingers crossed that the caterers will load your specific meal," he said.

Recommended by Our Editors

Plug In for a Digital Tour of Toronto

While you may only see "Fresh Meal" or not on RouteHappy's site, the company clearly knows a lot more about the food than it's saying.

For example: Aer Lingus lets you pre-order an Irish breakfast on transatlantic flights. Delta's Comfort+ transcontinental seats come with free Luvo sandwich wraps and frozen Greek yogurt bars, Routehappy said.

"When an airline says a 'refreshment' is served on board, it could be anything from a cup of orange juice to a fully plated meal," Rabinowitz said.

Currently, the food data is only available on Routehappy's site, which you can't use to book. You can search for flights on there and then book elsewhere. Routehappy offers up an API to its clients, so they'll probably be incorporating it soon.

Once you see the basic info, you might want to skip over to AirlineMeals.net, a user review site with tens of thousands of photos and reviews of specific airline meals. Yes, it's anecdotes rather than data, but it's all fascinating, colorful anecdotes.