The Best Meals Served Inflight, and Why Travelers Keep Ordering Them

American travelers eat beef on the flight home.

“Beef is the top-selected choice through our pre-select program,” Stephanie Laster, Delta’s managing director of onboard services, tells Travel + Leisure, referencing customer data for flights returning to the U.S. 

Delta made headlines in December 2024 when it started serving Shake Shack’s iconic cheeseburger at cruising altitude. The burger in question is currently available on flights of more than 900 miles departing from Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle, and New-York LaGuardia. This weekend, the Shake Shack burger continued its national expansion, launching in Orlando, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, New York-JFK, Miami, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. This means the Shake Shack burger will now be available when flying out of all the primary U.S. Delta hubs. 

“A burger has always been something we’ve rotated, especially on Delta One as you’re coming back into the United States,” Laster says. Beef short rib is another favorite, she adds, along with the Jon & Vinny meatballs, which were previously only offered to those flying out of L.A., but are now available on other domestic flights because the braised beef meatballs in marinara garnered so many loyal fans. 

“It shouldn’t surprise us that food that transports well for us by delivery services and takeout would work really well in the sky,” says Paul Tumpowsky, an aviation expert and T+L A-List advisor. Tumpowsky and Laster both suggest that it’s not the elaborate dégustation that hits in the sky, but the well-executed comfort foods. “Some airlines put such huge effort into getting a Michelin star at 35,000 feet, and they are never going to get it,” Tumpowsky says. The most memorable meal he’s had on a flight?  “It was a burger on Cathay Pacific. It photographed well, it looked good, and it tasted great at 35,000 feet.” 

It’s the lower-lift preparation paired with the highly detailed presentation that seems to have the biggest impact on travelers. The Shake Shack burger is heated with cheese in Delta’s first-class ovens and the buns are warmed; the guest then adds the pre-packaged lettuce, onion, tomato, pickle, and Shake Shack-branded sauce. T+L aviation reporter Chris Dong, who tried Delta’s Shake Shack burger on two flights, says it was “surprisingly tasty and pretty close to what you’d get on the ground,” in a recent video. He notes that it’s a more “DIY burger” while the Cathay Pacific offering comes fully assembled—and with fries. The burger on Delta comes with a Shake Shack brownie, Caesar salad, and Miss Vickie’s chips.

Delta and Cathay aren’t the only airlines bringing takeout staples to the friendly skies. EVA Air has been serving Din Tai Fung’s soup dumplings to business-class passengers for years, first debuting xiao long bao on flights between Taipei and Tokyo’s Haneda airport in 2002.

It has more recently expanded the offering to business-class cabins on routes departing Taipei to five North American destinations, including Vancouver and Los Angeles. It’s the presentation that makes the experience; “We specially designed the in-flight presentation of xiao long bao using traditional bamboo steamers to recreate the authentic dining experience of the restaurant,” an EVA Air spokesperson tells T+L. 

As Delta continues to look at inflight behavior and cravings, the Onboard Services team always comes back to indulgence. “We know customers generally want to enjoy that beef, the ice cream sundae, and the glass of red wine on board. I always say it seems like calories don’t count in the sky,” Laster says.

Of course, there are complaints and slip-ups: one of Dong’s inflight Shake Shack burgers was slightly overcooked, and among the excellent customer feedback Delta receives about the new burger, a common refrain is, but where are the fries?

“Shake Shack has well-established processes in their stores and to then adapt it for the air, there was a lot of planning that went in, and a lot of research and development and testing, both on the ground and in the air, before we ever even launched,” Laster says. “Setting our caterers up for success as well as our flight attendants, is critical. We want to make sure we can deliver products consistently.”

Though the flight attendants only heat the burgers with the cheese and the bun, serving it at 35,000 feet takes a lot more preparation than the average Friday night delivery meal. And to Tumpowsky’s point, it’s the simpler meals that are more easily replicated in the sky that most excite travelers. More than a third of customers who are pre-selecting the Shake Shack burger then order it again on their next flight, per Laster. 

The branded comfort foods that foodies favor when ordering takeout have staying power at 35,000 feet—see also: United’s pre-packed Magnolia Bakery banana pudding. It’s only a matter of time before Carbone’s spicy rigatoni or Dave’s hot chicken make it to a first-class cabin departing from a city near you. Just don’t expect anyone to ask if you’d like fries with that.