First Airline Meals: The 1928 Lufthansa vs. 1936 United Myth

While popular trivia often cites United Airlines in 1936 as the pioneer of in-flight dining, the true history of airline meals is a complex evolution of technology rather than a single “first.” The confusion usually stems from the distinction between a pre-packaged snack and a hot meal, and more specifically, the difference between food that is kept warm versus food that is actually cooked in the air.

The true origin of the inflight airline meal began on October 11, 1919, with Handley Page Transport. These weren’t the multi-course affairs we imagine today; they were simple 3-shilling lunch boxes containing sandwiches and fruit, handed out by a cabin boy. However, the real historical discrepancy begins in the 1920s, where Lufthansa is often credited with the first hot meal in 1928. In reality, while Lufthansa provided hot food, it was pre-heated on the ground and kept in thermal containers.

First Hot Airline Meals

The first hot meal served on an airliner was on May 1, 1927. These meals were served on the three-engined Armstrong Whitworth Argosies flown by Imperial Airways on their Croydon to Paris “Silver Wing” flights. The airline built galleys into the rear of the airplanes and served lunch and wine to as many as eighteen passengers.

The United Airlines MYTH

United Airlines is often erroneously credited with the first hot meal in 1936. In fact, many other airlines had served hot meals before United Airlines began, starting with the abovementioned Imperial Airways. The reason United is mentioned as being the first a technicality of scale rather than the airline being first to serve this kind of meal. United was the first to implement industrial onboard galleys, but they were nearly ten years behind Imperial Airways, which successfully served hot meals from an in-flight galley as early as 1927.

The Second First: France Air Union and the Rise of Haute Cuisine

After Imperial, the next airline to serve hot meals was France Air Union, which began serving much more complex meals in August of that same year. Not to be outdone by Imperial Airways which was serving its lunches on the ultra competitive London-Paris route, Air Union began offering its Rayon d’Or (Golden Ray) meal service onboard it’s Lioré et Olivier LeO 21 airliners.

These planes were not only faster than the competition, but the lunches were much fancier, consisting of what could be called haute cuisine. Passengers were served hors d’oeuvres, crayfish a la Parisienne, chicken chasseur, York ham in gelatin, salad Niçoise, ice cream, cheese, and fruit, with champagne, red or white Bordeaux, liquors, soft drinks, or coffee to drink. These meal were enjoyed in quite elegant, comfortable, and spacious cabins.

The Roots of Destination Dining: While European airlines were turning the cabin into a flying French bistro, the American dining landscape was being shaped by its own firsts.

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The American Timeline: TAT and the 1929 ‘Hot Meal’ Reality

While these hot meals were being served on European flights, the first inflight meals were being served on U.S. flights. Western Air began serving sandwiches from the Pig ‘n Whistle cafeteria in Los Angeles. These were served on the airline’s Fokkers airplanes flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Along with these meals came the first female flight attendants, needlessly called stewardesses instead of stewards.

Hot meals in the U.S. came soon after, on July 7, 1929, when Transcontinental Air Transport began serving passengers breakfast and lunch, as well as tea and toast in the afternoon. The breakfasts were bouillon and finger sandwiches’ while the lunches were most often boiled chicken kept hot in insulated thermos containers.

These paltry meals were served on fancy plates with starched napkins, however. This route from New York to Los Angeles was so long that much of the journey had to be made on trains. Unfortunately, while the passengers were fed while on the plane, the law of prohibition extended into the air, and there was no wine.

United (1936): Arrived nearly a decade later. Their “innovation” wasn’t the food, it was the efficiency of the delivery.

Modern Airline Meals

If there is one thing you may have noticed by what preceded this section, it’s that the early airlines were feeding very few people. Today, thousands upon thousands of passengers are fed onboard airplanes, and they are not just taking relatively short jaunts during lunchtime. The demand for airline food, and consumer expectations and preferences, have changed drastically. Air travel grew faster since those early days than anyone could have imagined.

Much has changed since those early days of boxed lunches. airline meals are made by huge catering facilities. Complete meals are reheated onboard with specialized equipment.

Grocery Link: Standardizing the Experience: The push for efficiency in airline dining mirrored a broader shift in the mid-20th century toward automating the food experience. Just as flight kitchens needed to standardize every tray, the grocery industry was looking for ways to move thousands of products with forensic precision.

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The Modern Innovation: Flight Kitchens

The first such meal service, on a more modest scale, was devised by hotelier Don Magarrell, responsible for designing the kitchens on the U.S. ship the SS Leviathon.

Magarrel designed the first segmented trays that would fit on a passengers lap and serve three courses in one meal. The trays were made of pressed-pulp paper, much like today’s disposable drink holders, with compartmetns for a main course, an appetizer, a salad (in it’s own paper cup), and a dessert. There were even holes for salt and pepper packets.

The meals would be delivered to the passengers covered by a decorative striped blue cardboard lid, with coffee, cream, and sugar on the side. It is said that these types of trays inspired Swanson’s first TV dinners.

Magarrell didn’t invent the airline meal, but he was the architect of its industrialization. By hiring a Swiss chef from the Clift Hotel and implementing a centralized ‘flight kitchen’ model in Oakland, he created a level of consistency that smaller pioneers like TAT or Imperial Airways couldn’t match. It is this efficiency—not a historical ‘first’—that cemented United’s place in the popular imagination and created the persistent myth that in-flight dining began in 1936.

The Architect of the Myth: Don Magarrell and the Industrialization of In-Flight Dining

While Magarrell’s work is often used to falsely claim United was the ‘first’ to serve a hot meal, his true innovation was the centralized flight kitchen model. This Oakland facility was an exclusive United Airlines operation, staffed by only six employees who prepared 50 to 60 meals a day. It was the success of this dedicated United kitchen that led the airline to expand to New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, effectively standardizing ‘Mainliner’ cuisine across the country. While hot meals had been served onboard airplanes for decades prior, this was the beginning of airline meal standardization.