Asiana is Suffering Delays and Taking Off Without Meals – Even On 12 Hour Flights

Star Alliance member Asiana is suffering widespread delays for catering and many flights are leaving without meals at all, even on trips as long as twelve hours.

Reportedly on Sunday “51 flights departed behind schedule and 38 left the airport without meals to feed passengers.” Then on Monday “18 out of 75 international flights operated by the carrier were delayed more than an hour and 16 short-haul flights to Japan and China even departed from the Incheon International Airport without in-flight meals.”

The airline dropped its long-standing contract with LSG SkyChefs and was supposed to replace it with Gate Gourmet. However the Gate Gourmet facility caught fire and they weren’t ready to take over serving Asiana in time.

So Asiana signed on with Sharp Do & Co for a three month stop gap. They historically operated at very low volume in South Korea. They had never done more than 3000 meals in a day while Asiana serves 20,000 – 30,000 passengers a day. The head of Sharp Do & Co has even committed suicide.

Asiana has been giving out meal vouchers so that passengers can buy their own food in the terminal.

There’s much more to the story apparently, though I cannot verify the allegations of corruption that led to Asiana cancelling its agreement with LSG SkyChefs. Asiana’s Chairman by the way has been accused of sexual harassment for forced handshakes.

When American dropped its caterer at LAX over health concerns in the fall they had delays and an inability to scale up replacements as well, and there were already alternative caterers on site. So challenges like this are often disruptive.

If you’re flying Asiana over the next couple of days consider loading up in the terminal.

(HT: ITSmartTours)

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. Gary don’t you think you should cover the lady’s face in the picture?
    I’ve seen this picture dozens of times in your various posts throughout the years and I don’t think she’ll like being exposed to the public every time you use this picture.

  2. “Asiana’s Chairman by the way has been accused of sexual harassment for forced handshakes.”

    BY THE WAY…. ???? WHAT has this got to do with the meals fiasco ??

    Why do you put in a goofy bs sentence that has nothing to do with the topic at hand ??

    Utter nonsense Gary,,,, Stick to the story.

  3. Gosh, the head of a catering company committed suicide because they couldn’t scale? That’s terrible. I wonder why they just didn’t take the contract if they knew they couldn’t deliver…

  4. Thanks for the warning Gary!!!!! We are flying from ICN to HNL tonight and it is great to know that we should ask at the airport.

  5. Wow a timely story and “JL/James” resemble the parts of our society that are just not happy with anything anyone says. Sad.

    Good post timely and hey Gary use the damn photo again!

    Happy 4th

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