Ex-cabin crew reveals how economy flyers get free business class food & drink

WHEN you catch a flight in economy, you don’t expect many bells and whistles – with the inflight luxuries going to the passengers paying more for their seat.

But a former flight attendant has revealed how economy passengers can get free drinks and snacks usually reserved for business and first class.

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Lara Angell, 26, was a flight attendant for Virgin Atlantic prior to the pandemic, and said the airline normally only had one type of snack available for economy passengers, but more options in business or first class.

She told Sun Online Travel: “If an economy passenger said they didn’t like the snack, one of us might just nip into the premium cabins and take some snacks from there.

“For example, in economy we didn’t have any herbal teas, but if a passenger asked for one, we could just go and get it from premium.”

Lara said there was another way some sneaky passengers would bag a nicer meal.

She explained that the flight would have a limited number of meals onboard – some meat and some vegetarian.

She said that meal service would normally start at both ends of the plane, so the people in the middle were last to be served.

If some meals had run out by the time the trolley arrived, passengers could demand a different meal.

Lara said: “We had a lot of demanding passengers when we were doing food service.

“We normally had two meat options and one veggie. Sometimes you’d get to the middle and you’d run out of the veggie choice and someone would say they were vegetarian – even though they hadn’t told us in advance.

“In that instance, I’d say that I could give them a premium meal instead, but the only option was chicken, to which they’d say that was fine.

“So clearly they weren’t veggie, they were just being a pain and were trying their luck at getting a nicer meal.”

Conveniently forgetting to order your vegetarian meal in advance could help your chances for getting upgraded.

A flight attendant revealed that requesting a special meal before flying could scupper your chances of bagging a free upgrade.

While passengers are able to ask for a different meal option before travelling, such as vegetarian or gluten-free, it could prevent them from being upgraded to a nicer seat.

Flight attendant Neil Jackson, author of Welcome Aboard, told Mail Online: “Crew say veggies hardly ever get upgraded, because there might not be a suitable meal for them up front.”

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