Flying can be a challenge while vegan, and has American Airlines definitely pushed my buttons for this one. In this blog post, I will be showing you what it’s like to order and dine with vegan meals on American Airlines in economy and premium economy.
ECONOMY
FLIGHT #1
The first time I flew American Airlines, I didn’t intend on doing a series of different airlines versus their vegan meal offerings. Therefore I didn’t photograph my vegan meals on this American Airlines flight. But let’s just say it literally tasted like vomit (I wish I was exaggerating). Therefore I will save you from the name of the dish and the route so that you won’t associate the dish with that “flavor” profile. Let’s just hope it isn’t served anymore. The meal lacked a “dessert” such as fruit, and bread wasn’t served either.
For breakfast, I received a snack box which included two breakfast bars sweetened with dates. I liked how the snacks were packed so I could grab them quickly off the plane as needed, but there wasn’t a warm option, nor was there fresh fruit.
The vegan meals with American Airlines on this 10 hour flight left me hungry (to be fair I only took two bites of the curry before spitting it out), and I flew through over half of my snacks I packed before my next long haul flight of the day (which was also 10 hours). Thankfully I had a wonderful meal during my layover, and the meals on the partner’s airlines were acceptable.
FLIGHT #2 + REQUESTING A VEGAN MEAL WITH AMERICAN AIRLINES
The second time I flew American Airlines from Dallas to Frankfurt, I requested my vegan meals in advance, this time about 3 days prior to my flight. Now they claim you can request your dietary preferences up to 24 hours in advance, so I called and requested my vegan meals with American Airlines three days before thinking that’d be fine. However, when I got on the plane, they acted surprised when they came by with the meal cart and I asked “where’s my meal”?
I’ve learned in the future with American Airlines and with any other airline in the future to:
👉🏿request online if possible (which is completely possible on the American Airlines app 30 days within departure of your flight – go to your flight details and to to “Special Meal”, and choose “vegetarian vegan” – this meal as explained by AA has no animal products)
👉🏿after requesting online, call a day later and make sure they can actually see it on their end
👉🏿if you have to call and request a meal, call back a day later to make sure the person who set your meal request actually saved it properly (I did this once with a different airline and the agent or the computer didn’t save it – so double check!)
👉🏿request as soon as possible, I’ve heard from airlines employees that less than a week out meal reservations tend to get “lost” (wonder if this happened in my case or if the agent/computer didn’t save my request properly – the FA couldn’t even see I requested one)
⚠️You have to request your vegan meals with American Airlines for each individual flight in your itinerary, don’t forget to do it for all portions!
⚠️If you have a multi city or a return city itinerary and if any of those portions are greater than 30 days out, then you will need to remember to request the meals for those flights prior to departure
Back to the Dallas to Frankfurt American Airlines flight with the forgotten vegan meals. The flight attendant attempted to put together a vegan meal for me and they managed to put together two small salads which included lettuce, tomato, and carrot (no vegan dressing on board, not even olive oil). My neighbor was nice enough to give me his salad, which was a third salad for me. The flight attendant also provided some accidentally vegan cream crackers, and a bread roll. Bon appetit! At least it didn’t taste atrocious, so I won’t complain. And I flew through my snacks again! The breakfast wasn’t vegan on this route, there wasn’t even fresh fruit available.
PREMIUM ECONOMY
The next time I flew American Airlines, I decided to test out their premium economy product. Compared to economy, this includes a wider seat, extra legroom, and if you’re sitting in the bulkhead – a leg recliner for your foot rest to attach to (the non-bulk head seats do not have leg recliners, and the foot rests are pull down foot pedals attached to the seat in front of you). The seat closely resembles the “first class” flights on most USA domestic routes.
My first flight was from Los Angeles to Tokyo Haneda (LAX to HND). The flight took off at 1am Los Angeles time (5pm Tokyo time), and landed at 5am Tokyo time (1pm Los Angeles time). Total flight time was 12 hours.
I did pack my own vegan snacks before this flight (which regardless of your diet, and from my previous experiences, I highly recommend, I once had a long haul United flight where NO “special” meals were packed on that flight – and I paid Polaris/business class for it 😣). Unfortunately, I noticed at the gate shortly before departure that all four of my pistachio packages weren’t sealed properly and I decided to toss them as a safety precaution. Let’s just hope American Airlines had my vegan meals on board this time! 🤞🏿
DINNER #1
Would you look at that! An hour after take off, American Airlines serves up a vegan meal this time, and decided to go for a vegan dinner with:
👉🏿Quinoa with raw zucchini and raw yellow squash, steamed asparagus, cooked apricot squash, and a tomato sauce
👉🏿Salad with lettuce, rice, small chunks of red, green, and yellow bell peppers, cooked asparagus, tomatoes, and cucumber slices, and a slice of lemon and olive oil
👉🏿Strawberries
👉🏿Bread roll with vegan butter, and some crackers too
I found the taste of this vegan meal on American Airlines to overall fall short, and unfortunately was lacking flavor for their advertised “elevated meal service”. The only thing I can say about the quinoa and veggie dish is “oh goodness…” (and also 🗣BLAND). The salad dish was okay once mixed and topped with a bit of olive oil and lemon juice. The roll was your typical airplane style “battle with the teeth” bread roll. At least those strawberries were sweet!
Although the vegan meal had a variety of veggies, overall the calorie amount was small. Also the protein amount was minimum from the small scoop of quinoa. At least “dessert” wasn’t skimmed this time! I guess this is enough to hopefully let me get some Z’s across the Pacific ocean at least.
LATE NIGHT SNACK #1
This indeed wasn’t enough food for me to sleep until breakfast time. I woke up and headed to the economy galley to check out the vegan snacks offered by American Airlines. All three snacks (pretzels, sea salt potato chips, and Oreos) offered on the flight were vegan! 🙌🏿
As premium economy and business class share the same lavatory, I did have (unofficial) access to the business class snacks and decided to take a peek (after asking the flight attendant), and the flight attendant ended up letting me have a treat from there, so sweet of her! With the exception of one snack with cheese in it, everything was vegan. From puffed corn, several flavored potato chips without milk powder or honey, yuca chips, protein bars, and chocolate chip cookies, I wanted to remove the cheese crackers, place them to the side, and take the rest of the basket with me. But instead, I just took my vegan Partake chocolate chip cookies and went back to my seat.
BREAKFAST #1
👉🏿Dairy yogurt… 😳
👉🏿Vegan muffin
👉🏿Pinto beans, potatoes, spinach, and one cherry tomato 🤌🏿
👉🏿Fresh fruit
Keeping in mind that vegetarian vegan meals according to the American Airlines website means NO animal “by-products”, including meat, dairy, eggs, gelatin, honey, or anything else that comes from an animal, I was disappointed but not surprised to see the dairy yogurt.
Due to the yogurt incident, I was hesitant to eat the muffin, although thankfully the ingredients were listed on the back and I saw they used soy milk in the muffins and that they were vegan! I found them to be overall too sweet for me personally, so I only took a couple of bites, but it was a nice starting point to normalizing vegan pastries on board. And then as for the pinto bean dish, again it was just okay. I found it to be lacking flavor and thought the spinach was going to take me out if I swallowed it; it was overcooked to the point of being a choking hazard! Also the potatoes were very salty. At least the fruit was tasty and fresh!
LAYOVER AT TOKYO HANEDA
I had an 8 hour layover at Tokyo Haneda before heading to Thailand with Japan Airlines premium economy (this also granted me lounge access, although economy meals are served onboard). After some tasty vegan meals from Japan Airlines, I got a chance to explore the beautiful Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui, and even got a chance to check out vegan-friendly hotels and vegan hotels in Thailand!
A month later, it was time to head back home. After a frustrating 8 hour layover on the way home with difficulties finding vegan food in Haneda Terminal 3, and learning that soy sauce isn’t usually vegan there as they add “fresh” fishes from the sea in the soy sauce – ruling out most dishes that otherwise would seem vegan, I managed to locate one option in the terminal just before boarding. I got this lettuce, tomato, and soy cheese sandwich on some thick bread. Sounds simple, but it was delicious actually!
By the way, there is an all vegan restaurant just outside of border and passport control called HealthyTOKYO Cafe & Shop. Once you’re done with all of the entrance formalities, you’ll be placed into Terminal 2. If you have time and the passport privilege to do so (as I did), you can formally enter Japan and eat here for more options. And then you’ll simply go down one floor to exit Japan and re-enter Terminal 3. Due to COVID-19, I didn’t feel like dealing with any extra steps to getting into the country, but maybe I over thought it at the time as those on the plane were only required to sign paperwork (although I’m unsure what would’ve been involved with immigration officers, especially given the time, and I didn’t feel like dealing with it, so I enjoyed Terminal 3 instead).
BACK TO LOS ANGELES
This flight left at 11AM Tokyo time, and arrived at 5:30AM Los Angeles time (9:30PM Tokyo time).
DINNER #2
Okay American Airlines coming in with the vegan meals! 🕺🏿An hour after takeoff, I was served this surprisingly colorful platter (and said “ooo” as the flight attendant placed it on my table 😅, and my meal also caused me to get a few eyeballs at my plate 😬). We (or I…) were served:
👉🏿Chickpeas coated in a tomato sauce
👉🏿Rice with four pieces of raisins
👉🏿Cooked veggies (broccoli, yellow and red bell peppers)
👉🏿Salad with green and purple lettuce, tomato, carrot, and fennel
👉🏿Salad with romaine lettuce, tomato, heart of palm, and topped with a stuffed guacamole ball (ball with chunks of corn, black beans, peppers, and onion)
👉🏿Fresh fruit
👉🏿Bread roll topped with seeds and oats, and served with vegan butter and strawberry jam on the side
I’m usually not the one to *enjoy* a meal on a plane, but this was the unusual occurrence of that, and is also the first time that I not only thought a vegan meal from American Airlines wasn’t bland to outright terrible (when I actually did get the meal), but where I found it to actually be be delicious – and not just passing the “it’s okay” test. The tomato sauce with the chickpeas was flavorful, the raisins surprisingly paired well with the rice and I think four was the right amount to not get too wild with the combo, the veggies were seasoned, and the guacamole salad was tasty! It would’ve been nice to have had a dressing with the fennel salad, but the fennel thankfully added its own flavor profile to the salad. Also the fruit tasted fresh, and the bread roll didn’t feel as if it was going to break my teeth (although the bread roll was still just “alright”).
MID… WHENEVER SNACK…
I woke up from my deep slumber for a midnight “loo review” (okay, I actually had to pee… urinate if my mom is reading… okay TMI!). From a quick glance at the gallery, the snacks didn’t look to be vegan, although I wasn’t hungry and didn’t take the time to read the ingredients, I was ready to go back to “bed” 💁🏿♀️. The snacks in the economy gallery included these small thick and dense looking pancake snacks which I assumed to not be vegan, and some candies which I assumed had gelatin.
BREAKFAST
Shortly before this trip came to an end, it was time for the last meal. For the breakfast vegan meal from American Airlines, I was served:
👉🏿Vegan fluffy pancakes (served hot!) with a side of maple syrup 😳
👉🏿Hash browns
👉🏿Mixed veggies
👉🏿Fresh fruit
Yes you read that right… vegan hot fluffy pancakes… served on an airplane! They seemed to have had some corn flour in it, and reminded me of a pancake taste, mixed with a very light and fluffy sweet cornbread taste. While not the typical wheat flour pancake taste, they were still delicious, and I was surprised by how thick they were! Did I mention they were vegan!? The hash browns were on the soft side but taste wise was fine. The mixed veggies were well seasoned and I enjoyed them. And as mentioned earlier, I found the fresh fruit to taste fresh, and it was also tasty.
We then landed at LAX and that was the end of the flight (minus the 30 minute wait as passengers can’t go through border control until 6AM). It would be fantastic if American Airlines could keep the same consistently with the vegan meals similar to my last flight – but only time will tell.
