Newly created international breakfast menu and eco-friendly packaging to be first introduced on flights to India
THAI Smile Airways is working on a plan to improve in-flight service and adjust to perfection with more attention to detail, according to its press statement.
As part of this, the carrier is introducing a wholly new range of hot snack for breakfast on domestic flights. It includes up to 24 international recipes, plus a selection of 22 special recipes on Bangkok–Narathiwat and Chiang Mai–Phuket flights.
More than 22 new exclusive inflight meals will also be served on short-haul international flights. The offer will be onboard from November 2018.
Additionally, THAI Smile is bringing a revolutionary change to premium in-flight service with the introduction of authentic recipes meticulously created by culinary gurus, in conjunction with the recent shift to new paper packaging in an attempt to reduce plastic use.
Starting from September 16 this year, on flights to India all meal boxes can be transformed into space-saving trays, illustrating THAI Smile’s corporate focus on providing superior in-flight experience, going beyond expectations and ensuring optimum satisfaction, the statement revealed.
“The change in our inflight service is to welcome the seventh year of our smile-filled operation and our tireless effort to enhance airline passenger’s inflight experience,” said Nednapang Teeravas, chief customer services officer of THAI Smile Airways.
“Hot snacks for breakfast are all internationalized with more variety. These will be available on flights departing before 9.30 am, starting November this year.
The newly created hot snacks for Smile Class (economy class) passengers on domestic flights come with new packaging design, representing fun and fusion while intentionally maintaining authentic elements of local dishes.
The 24 new hot snacks vary from Japanese cuisine such as Yaki-Imo (baked Japanese sweet potatoes), Tamagoyaki with cheese or sweet eggs, Okonomiyaki and Kushikatsu, to popular Korean dishes like Kimchi Fried Rice, western food like Spaghetti with Mushroom Cream Sauce and Thai food including Fried Vermicelli with Chayote. A selection of Chinese dishes is also available. To meet the culinary needs of Muslim passengers, all food ingredients are halal. Menu items are rotated throughout the year to provide passengers with variety and to coincide with seasonal freshness.
To make passenger experience more special, new 22 recipes have been created for those flying on Bangkok–Narathiwat and Chiang Mai–Phuket flights. These include, for instance, Spaghetti with Spicy Chicken and Rice Topped with Stir Fried Chicken with Holy Basil (Kao Pad Ka Prao Kai), of which the taste has been adjusted to be more pleasant and appealing to Thai passengers. Sandwiches are still served on flights departing after 9.30 am, but these will become colourful with the use of high-quality bread flour made from natural ingredients. It reflects the airline’s commitment to offering healthy inflight meals with the fusion of taste and style.
All exclusive recipes for 11 festivals will continue to be available onboard with greater effort to work closely with the airline’s long-standing partners to make its in-flight meals more attractive and delicious, giving passengers something beyond their expectations of what inflight service could look like.
On short-haul international flights to Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, Luang Prabang and Yangon, passengers will enjoy a whole new range of 22 inflight menu items, from western food like Spaghetti with Chicken and Tomato-Sweet Basil Source and Salmon Pie, to Thai dishes like Chicken Pad Thai, which are created especially to make their journey more memorable.
“Creating the latest inflight menu items is not an easy task. We worked closely with outsource suppliers and air caterers specializing in food research and recipe development to ensure high standards. The manufacturing and cooking process also needs to be qualified to achieve quality and palatability so that passengers feel like they are almost eating meals at some good restaurants on the ground level,” said the Chief Customer Services Officer.
Moreover, THAI Smile is writing a new chapter for in-flight service with the latest development and value added to hot snacks on flights to India.
Apart from selecting premium food ingredients, inflight communication with passengers rides on the theme, Original India, with the help of Indian food specialists creating a variety of Vegetarian Jain Meal (VJML) items that are truly palatable to Indian passengers.
Serving size is bigger and there are more options for Thai curry recipes such as Chicken Green Curry and Chicken Paneang along with a wide selection of Indian-style desserts.
In addition to the improvement in inflight culinary experience, THAI Smile is actively responding to the “go green” initiative, to which airlines around the world are increasingly giving importance. As part of this, it has changed inflight food service tradition by shifting to paper packaging as much as possible instead of using conventional plastic items.
One highlighted feature of the new packaging is that it comes available in a box shape when being loaded onto aircraft, and then can be transformed into a food tray before being served to passengers. Food warming onboard can be safer as the airline has substituted eco-friendly paper for aluminium foil. Plastic waste bags are now removed from all its flights and replaced with a biodegradable alternative.
“This major change took effect on 16 September, starting with flights to India. We expect Indian passengers will be impressed with our in-flight menu and satisfied with the touch of India they are familiar with. The change in packaging brings not only style and excitement but also the commitment of THAI Smile to tangible reduction of plastic use. This also enables effective space saving that leads to greater efficiency of aircraft space management, and therefore we are able to make the most of space available for more inflight offers. Moreover, advanced technology for food and packaging enables us to reduce costs while maintaining high quality of inflight service we deliver to customers fleet-wide. We plan to use case studies on our flights to India as a guideline for further service enhancement in other international routes.”
“With our passion to maintain service excellence and commitment to providing customers with the best possible service at every touch point, we are trying tirelessly to create superior travel experience for passengers on all THAI Smile flights. The recent change demonstrates the unique brand personality of THAI Smile as a full-service airline giving attention to every detail with added value and differentiation that put a smile on every passenger’s face and flight. We will continue to develop and improve both tangible elements like food and intangible parts, including the service attitude and passion of our cabin crews. We expect to find ways to meet and exceed passenger expectations,” said Nednapang.
