Crew Meals at the Fractionals - Good, Bad & Ugly

[On Your Six]

Someone brought this up on another thread and I thought it was worth revisiting. How do crew-meals work at the various fractionals? I had heard good things about Rudy's and special arrangements at Netjets - menu options. Do some fractionals just provide per diem and "good luck" at finding food in the vending machines? What about crew meals at Flex, CS, FLOPS and Avantair?

So, what food options do you have at your fractional? Any memorable or favorite meals that you get offered frequently? Which airports provide the best catering for crews (TEB, VNY, RIL, etc.)? Are the meals that much better than first class food in the airlines that some 121 pilots (legacies) might enjoy? I am sure the SWA, Jet Blue, Air Tran and Spirit pilots get tired of chips and peanuts.

 

[dime line]

Just remember at Options you (a pilot) have no Options

 

[blueridge71]

CS offers crew meals. The only hitch is that they charge $10 for them. They are good, but I'd rather run to Subway for half the price.

 

[On Your Six]

CS offers crew meals. The only hitch is that they charge $10 for them. They are good, but I'd rather run to Subway for half the price.

Really? What food options do you get for $10? Any examples? Does the quality of the food you are offered vary by geography?

Is this the same for Netjets, Flex, Avantair, etc.?

 

[Ultra Grump]

At NJA, crew food available 24 hrs a day, provided you have trips on your line or are hot spare. No charge. Currently a menu of 21 meals, 7 each for lunch, bfast, dinner. The menu changes quarterly - we are given a bunch of choices and vote on them, supposedly the 7 most popular for each meal then make it to the menu. The crew food program is changing, though, and I like the look of the examples that were provided. Rudy's and Stevie's suck, BTW. They were good when we could order whatever we wanted, but when price points were instituted by the company, the quality really suffered.

 

[Jafo73]

At NetJets if we don't have time to get something to eat (which is most of the time) the company provides us food (no charge to us). We have a menu with a few options for (seperate breakfast, lunch and dinner menus). The complaints are about portions and people want more flexible menu. Having had to eat Air Force box nasty meals, I think we eat pretty good at NJ.

 

[CherryBomb]

Avantair typically buys crew meals if the crew has less than one hour turns throughout the day. If the schedule has gaps between flights that are more than an hour, then management is reluctant to buy meals.

But as with everything, the "policy" is constantly changing.

 

[DirtyBeech]

Flex meals:

Breakfast- croissant or burrito with extra helpings of cholesterol, cheese and home fries.

Lunch- Sandwich bag or salad bag. If you get lucky it's a salad bag or a sandwich bag.

Dinner- Usually pretty good with a variety of meals, but you never know what's coming.

Meals are only provided on live legs or if you are sitting standby for 6 hours I think?

 

[av8orboy]

Avantair typically buys crew meals if the crew has less than one hour turns throughout the day. If the schedule has gaps between flights that are more than an hour, then management is reluctant to buy meals.

But as with everything, the "policy" is constantly changing.

Ditto at Alpha

 

[SDCFI]

Flex meals:

Breakfast- croissant or burrito with extra helpings of cholesterol, cheese and home fries.

Lunch- Sandwich bag or salad bag. If you get lucky it's a salad bag or a sandwich bag.

Dinner- Usually pretty good with a variety of meals, but you never know what's coming.

Meals are only provided on live legs or if you are sitting standby for 6 hours I think?

Last night I had some tasty lamb stew over vegetables and pasta. Dinner roll was a little tough though. Got that in Leesburgh, VA. Had omelets twice in the last 4 days. Good ones though. Just this morning they sent us breakfast for a repo, we forgot it because we weren't expecting it and didn't look closely at the trip sheet until we were in the air. We called the FBO and told them to eat it with our compliments, and then when we landed there were two crew breakfasts waiting for us. Somebody must like us. For me about 20% of the meals are Great, 75% are edible, but nothing to write home about, and 5% are not worth it even though they're free. Also, I've gotten the best meals by far from the small out of the way places. Air Chef and Rudy's are hit and miss, mostly miss. I don't think you have to do a full 6 hours of stby to get a meal. I sat in IAD the other day and they sent something over pretty much right away. I just finished my 3rd full rotation and in that time I bought a total of two meals in 16 days. The rest were either free breakfasts or crew meals. Not too shabby. Sometimes I do wish we had a choice for the meals, but I'm more than happy with what I've seen so far.

 

[dash_trash]

Just remember at Options you (a pilot) have no Options

And what they send you after arguing the policy with dispatch, is often unedible. It really says a lot about the meal when the line guys throw it away after you hand it to them. uke:

 

[dime line]

I just love the Tofu Sandwich, and the Cheese sandwich!

Breakfast....Whatever they send, no choice

Lunch........Whatever they send, no choice

Dinner........Whatever they send, no choice

So the beautiful thing is we feed the line guys a lot and we also feed the garbage can a lot as well.

 

[gutshotdraw]

At NJA, crew food available 24 hrs a day, provided you have trips on your line or are hot spare. No charge. Currently a menu of 21 meals, 7 each for lunch, bfast, dinner. The menu changes quarterly - we are given a bunch of choices and vote on them, supposedly the 7 most popular for each meal then make it to the menu. The crew food program is changing, though, and I like the look of the examples that were provided. Rudy's and Stevie's suck, BTW. They were good when we could order whatever we wanted, but when price points were instituted by the company, the quality really suffered.

Greaaattt! We get to join our union cousins on the fixed crew meal plan in about 10 days. All domestic, Mexico, and Carribbean flights are subject to the fixed menu but Hawaii, Alaska, and to/from other International will be crew choice. And we even get to order it ourselves on the gizmo! Woo-hoo!:uzi:

 

[TurboHonda]

And what they send you after arguing the policy with dispatch, is often unedible. It really says a lot about the meal when the line guys throw it away after you hand it to them. uke:

Don’t lose sight of who benefits from crew meals. It’s certainly not the pilot. The company wants you to stay with the plane and fly trips. So, they send food out to you. That keeps the pilot from leaving the FBO to seek necessary nourishment.

Somewhere along the line the company starts thinking it’s some kind of benefit to the pilot. Frequently the pilot starts believing it too.

The next time you get a ptomaine special; send a BB message to dispatch.

Say “The food was crap. I’ve taken the crew car to go eat. Will advise when I return.”

 

[sweptwingz]

A typical crew meal....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzpN9ce_qF0

 

[MrSky]

You Guys really get Food supplied to you??
How to you get a job at a fractional...Sign me up!

 

[CA1900]

You Guys really get Food supplied to you??

Yup, at no cost to us. There aren't food courts at FBOs, so the options are either let us go get food and keep the plane parked for a couple of hours, or send food to us at the airport. (If we have several hours of downtime they'll tell us to go find food ourselves with a crew car, but that's uncommon.)

For the meals we get at NJA, the quality varies depending on the vendor, and there isn't a ton of variety. But you get a free meal in exchange for keeping a multimillion-dollar machine moving a little more during the day. I'd say the company gets the better end of the deal, believe me!

No idea what the crew meals involve at the other fractionals, although I understand that CitationShares deducts $10 from your per-diem for every crew meal you get.

How to you get a job at a fractional...Sign me up!

http://www.netjets.com/footer_content/careers_pilots.asp
http://www.citationshares.com/careers/job.aspx?job=1
https://bombardier.taleo.net/servle...ge=en&selected_language=en&csNo=2#topOfCsPage
http://www.flightoptions.com/career_opportunities.html

 

[TurboHonda]

You Guys really get Food supplied to you??
How to you get a job at a fractional...Sign me up!

Perfect mentality. You'll fit right in.

 

[FLYLOW22]

Greaaattt! We get to join our union cousins on the fixed crew meal plan in about 10 days. All domestic, Mexico, and Carribbean flights are subject to the fixed menu but Hawaii, Alaska, and to/from other International will be crew choice. And we even get to order it ourselves on the gizmo! Woo-hoo!:uzi:

Don't like it? Get a Union!!!

 

[gutshotdraw]

You have a union and you have it. And so, we're getting it. The difference is, we don't get grievance money when they screw it up. Now THAT might be a reason to get a union