Air Asia revamps menu to offer more food choices for passengers

When CNNGo came up with the ‘World’s 50 Most Delicious Foods’ which included Chicken Massaman Curry from Thailand, Air Asia immediately jumped on the bandwagon and included the dish in their in-flight menu.

The blend of Indian curry with Thai spices with hints of coconut milk results in an interesting sweet and savoury flavour. Now we don’t have an excuse to keep gravitating to the mighty nasi lemak. As far as food goes, a good variety is the spice of anyone’s life.

Chia (third from right), Air Asia Thailand commercial director Santisuk Klongchaiya (second from right) and Air Asia Thailand inflight sales manager On-anong Methapipatkul (third from left) together with some of the Thai cabin crew members at the Thai Air Asia Co. office.

Riding on this philosophy, Air Asia has revamped its in-flight menu to offer more food choices to passengers. Having said that, the trick is to pre-book your meals while booking your flight as you will have a longer list of dishes to choose from. There have been people who belly ached about some meals being unavailable when they order onboard the aircraft.

“It is because we can’t actually gauge what people will order. In the end, that leads to wastage of the unpurchased food,” said Air Asia’s catering and inflight management regional head Shireen Chia. By prebooking your meals, you can enjoy the food at a cheaper price and book more than one meal.

Under close watch : Staff at See Fah making Chicken Lasagna.

The main purpose for the revamp is to introduce food from the region like Thailand and Indonesia. “Some items are available to all destinations but some are only limited to that particular country. For example, Basil Fried Chicken with Rice is only available on Thailand (FD) flights,” added Chia. Chicken Massaman is available from January to February as part of the inflight specialty.

“We include different food highlights every two months based on country festivals. For example, come March/April, there will be Pad Thai with Shrimp (stir fried rice noodles with tamarind sauce and bean sprouts) in time for Songkhran in Thailand. “In May/June, we will include Hong Kong food in conjunction with the Dragon Boat festival.”

Decent portion: Chicken Lasagna.

Soon to make its appearance in the Air Asia pre-booked meals are more varieties of light snacks and desserts. “We want to emphasise that all of our meals prepared at our Thailand and Indonesia facilities are certified halal,” she stressed. Some 3,000kg of chicken is used a month to prepare 13 chicken dishes to all destinations.

The Star was recently invited to visit Air Asia’s catering supplier, See Fah, located in the Seamut Prakarn province near Bangkok. See Fah even has a quality control manager to oversee that the food which goes on board the flight is consistent in terms of grammage, presentation and taste on a weekly basis.

They source halal chickens from Betagro Group located in the Ropburi province. So how did the partnership start? “The CEO of Thai Air Asia had a meal at See Fah restaurant and liked the food. He approached the owner and suggested we start a partnership. That was in 2008. See Fah also uses biodegradable products to clean their equipment,” said Chia.

See Fah was founded by the grandparents of its CEO, Taveerach Rachjaibun in 1936. He now runs the business with his sister, Maneegorn. “It started as an ice-cream stand and fruit store in Chinatown, Bangkok. Throughout the years it slowly became a restaurant and food service company,” said Rachjaibun.

In Jakarta, we were taken to Aerofood ACS where we sampled some of the best sellers on Indonesian-bound flight menu such Nasi Kuning Manado, Nasi Padang and Nasi Lemak. Aerofood ACS has seven in-flight catering facilities throughout Indonesia including Denpasar, Surabaya, Medan, Balikpapan, Yogyakarta and Bandung.

“We started working with Air Asia since July 2010. “Approximately 1,600 meals go out each day from all of our kitchens,” said Aerofood ACS general manager (Jakarta) Afdal Amir. Their executive sous chef Herman Hoi hails from Hong Kong but has spent 17 years working in Indonesia.

“The dishes are made in Indonesia but the recipes are developed in Malaysia. We will occasionally tweak the recipes to suit the general public’s taste,” said Hoi. Their Nasi Kuning Ayam Bumbu Bali which has a mild taste of coconut milk and comes with pickles is must-try. “If customers want a more spicy flavour, they can opt for Nasi Kuning Manado,” added Hoi.

How does Air Asia come up with the dishes for their inflight menu? “We don’t just offer usual food you can find anywhere so we choose signature hawker dishes from each country. “For Thailand and Indonesian dishes, our counterparts in both countries will tweak the recipes we develop to make sure it’s just right.

“That goes for our general hot items on the menu such as lasagna and chicken spaghetti. We also get our cabin crew to sample the food and provide their feedback so we can improve the recipes. “We also get customer/passenger feedback on-board and via the Internet,” said Chia. Air Asia will soon have kitchen catering facilities in Phillippines in March and Japan in August.

-thestar online.

www.airasia.com