Heyhoi
When my catering trucks are on a job they go and fill up only the amount of food needed for that 1 job. Resulting in them only filling up about 20%, filling one aircraft. Then they need to go back to the catering depot to fill up again for the next job.
Why don’t the fully load up when at the catering depot? This would save a lot of time.
Is it supposed to work like this or is it a bug?
Yes…
Imagine: You cook 1000 meals and stuff them into a catering truck. The truck goes to the first plane and delivers 200 of them. Taking time of course. The remaining 800 are hauled elsewhere. Say another 300 will be delivered at the next plane. Still 500 in the truck getting cold and stale over time. Really, would YOU as passenger and customer accept such a thing? Getting served old or stale or cold food just it is convenient to load more into a truck than is needed? I guess not. Meals are prepared on demand and catered to the plane requesting them as fresh as possible. Or at least at a reasonable rate of freshness - they might get re-heated on the plane again.
No ofcourse not.
would make sence to me to load more, so the trucks can go and fill 2 or 3 planes. Also have a time for when the food “spoiles” then gets taken to the garbage depot or something. This way it won’t be stale and it won’t stay in the truck overnight or for a to long period.
Catering is not delivered to the aircraft hot. Hot items are usually cooked or par cooked and then flash frozen or refrigerated and delivered. The hot items are then reheated or finished on the aircraft in flight.
Depending on the load and the catering required, the catering truck may not have enough room to carry enough for two aircraft.
The other thing to consider, especially for US domestic flights, the catering received is usually only snacks and drinks. Longer flights may have 1st class meals which are served hot but the whole aircraft is not served a full meal. In these cases, a catering truck is usually carrying enough catering to service several aircraft and will go from one to the next.
The idea of filling a catering truck to the brim is not the point of fresh food being catered on a plane.
I know the food is not supposed to be hot when it is getting on the plane, but they are refrigerated in the catering facility.
Meals are not catered hot but cold.
They have to quickly get to the plane before it gets warmer.
The food has to acquire FDA food standards, and if the food gets warmer it can grow bacteria.
All of this information is grown off of reliable documentaries.
Thank you. I totally forgot the hygienic aspects as well. Either you preserve the food to a point where bacteria and germs themselves think ‘we have pride. too’ and lose quality or you try to deliver as fresh as possible with the danger that it spoils over time.
I have heard however, that the food is seasoned or pre-cooked in a different manner than on the ground. Reason: It appears for food to taste differently, when consumed high in the air. I cannot tell - flew too little in my life, but there has been a documentary in German TV some time ago.
The difference for the taste is that it will be prepared with much stronger taste (more salt, pepper etc) because the taste is lighter in the air.
Regarding freshness: I don’t know if the catering trucks (or the trolleys themselves) have some cooling equipment which would make it possible to cater several planes [Edit: Titule was quicker with his reply, obviously they have it…]. For shorter flights (for example < 2 hours) a truck could store “snacks & drinks only” and then cater several airplanes, taking only a few minutes for each. But it would quite complicated to separate the trucks for different types of catering.
Generally I’m fine with how it currently is, it’s still just a management game and not a simulation.
Also don‘t forget another aspect here for the Catering: Airline Brandings and variety of food. In reality when you get food or drinks on a flight most times the plastic cups/papers/food trays etc. have the label of the Airline you are actually flying with on it. Also every airline offers a different meal service on their flights, with different food options, drinks, etc.
As we have only one catering company active in the game, in theory if you would fully load the catering trucks every time the truck must already know which flights it will serve in advance, to load the right stuff for the different airlines. So I would say the way it is done at the moment is the best to match the general reality.
It tastes worse. Some airlines claim to have star chefs creating their meals… if I had to eat that stuff in their michelin-starred restaurants I’d refuse to pay. 
Well, to be honest, the caterers have to prepare the food long time ahead (I read something about 8 hours - and minimum 3 hours before departure it has to be ready for onloading). No matter what they try, they can never reach restaurant quality.
As far as I know, Turkish Airlines and Austrian Airlines are the only ones with a chef on their flights. Never had a flight with the, so I can’t judge if it’s better.
Every bread bun you get on a LH-flight is at least one day old (I heard from very reliable source I will not disclose). It’s because they are produced outside Germany and have to be transported to the airports.
I checked for Austrian and they have a chef on board for their business class. The chefs have no Michelin star I believe. They heat the food they get from Do&Co (https://www.austrian.com/Info/Flightinformation/LonghaulBusiness.aspx?sc_lang=en&cc=AT)
Which is shameful, as Germany is known for a big diversity of good bread. That it is still more profitable to produce buns say in Poland and ship them to the airports by truck is…irritating. Still more profitable than buying at a big bakery just some few kilometers away. And a LH…a German wing does such a thing adds insult to damage done. But then again…the passenger just looks at the price for the flight and not how such a price can be realized (pollution, people out of work). Any more thinking about it just makes me angry - sorry for that.
I am aware that catering trucks have refrigeration, but the food is still served day fresh, (mostly). Airlines, as they hire caterers to cater food daily want there food to exceed a higher quality than a competing airline.
I have seen that with a contract the airline requires the catering company to follow there guidelines, which can include the ingredients, time of production, and the food it’s self. Fresh and good tasting food is all part of the airline business.
Also even with refrigeration, the food was probably not men’t to be inside that truck for so long. Could be wrong though.
The same for beer…
Full ack, also for the rest of your rant.
If you get some food on a flight you’ll notice often that even the cutlery is ice cold. Because it was in the cooler together with the food for a long time. I don’t say they transport the forks all the way from the factory, but it is not prepared at the airport or (see above, also the freshness of the food) even the same country.
So the catering depot in the game is rather a re-combination of pre-prepared food in reality, maybe they also add the forks.
Yes, the catering contracts do define a level of quality and service, also because the airline wants to have a “signature” on their food. It would be cool if that could somehow be included in the game. It’s a economic simulation game, so I’d prefer some more economic in the game (and I don’t care as much about the looks).
Regarding the airline request: What about the airlines in the contract request a certain quality (price per meal as you can adjust in your catering depot). If the quality is below it, you might get less flights or even a penalty.
You could then build more than one catering depot and have different quality levels. The catering trucks will always try to get the food from the closest depot which is at or above the requested level for the airline. If there is none, they’ll go instead for the best alternative (highest quality available).
That way you could create a “low cost” catering as well as “exclusive” catering.
This would be especially interesting if in the future it would be possible to assign gates (or terminals) to airlines / groups of airlines. For example you assign T1 to all the full-service airlines and T2 to low cost airlines. Then you could also add corresponding catering depots for each terminal with proper quality levels.
Besides, not just referring to the catering, I also hope that with the gameplay update when it’s relevant to make airlines and passengers happy, different airlines and their passengers would have different requirements. A low cost airline might just be happy with an ugly terminal and low quality seats, but high quality airlines might request way higher quality with plants, comfortable seats etc.
I’d trust the catering depots to produce all required quality levels and the trucks be loaded with the adequate food for the flights, to keep it simple.
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