"Following the successful wine flight the national airline unveiled its new summer in-flight menus in the stylish environment of a Boeing 737-700. Malév customers travelling on a daily 140 flights to 50 destinations in 37 countries will be able to select from these catering choices comprising partly Hungarian, partly international cuisine.The most important aspect when changing the onboard menus was to guarantee the application of the latest nutritional findings and modern cooking techniques in the preparation of dishes. Reflecting today's dining expectations, the focus is on easily digestible, lighter meals. During the catering show journalists gained a glimpse into some of the behind-the-scenes secrets of aviation catering.
By tradition, the Hungarian national carrier devotes particular attention to serving its customers with high quality meals, thereby reinforcing the still strong traditions of Hungarian hospitality. To coincide with the start of the summer timetable the airline refreshed its onboard offer, which could initially be enjoyed by economy and business class passengers on short-haul flights. The newly formulated, high quality, attractively presented and varied, flavoursome dishes appropriate to the time of day are also to appear on the New York and Toronto long-haul services restarting in May.
During a press briefing combined with food presentation Péter Leonov, Malév CEO, emphasized that "One of the most important assets that Malév has is its high standard of service. While we are doing everything possible for the economic, profitable operation of our airline, we never forget the demands of our customers, and we will continue to place particular stress on ensuring that fine Hungarian wines and healthy, varied menus and, naturally, Hungarian dishes, feature onboard our flights."
Malév continues to offer its passengers beverages and meals on all its flights, the precise selection of which depends on the length of the flight, the time of day and the travel class. Catering in Malév business class will continue to differ from and offer a greater choice than that in economy.
Zoltán Mester, deputy CEO, spoke about the general catering habits of Malév passengers. "The catering habits of Malév travellers have changed in line with international trends: quality has very much become the primary aspect. Not only have we seen business passengers consuming less on our short-haul flights, but they are more conscious about what they are eating and they expect better quality, and this trend is also apparent in economy class."
György Majtán, executive of catering supplier Budapest Aeroservice Kft., gave a few interesting details supporting this change in style. "When putting together the menus the use of easily digestible meats was given great emphasis. Whereas we reckon on Malév ordering just 800 kilos of pork a year, this figure is 72 tons for the so-called white meats, chicken and turkey, and 3.4 tons of fish. The quality change is also considerable with the red meats, too, because 7.7 tons of tenderloin steak and 4.8 tons of veal will be served."
When compiling the menus from around 160 ingredients in the summer timetable period great attention is given not only to quality but variation as well. Onboard menus are switched around on a weekly basis. This means that the four variations made from the same foodstuffs follow each other so that passengers find themselves served the same dish again only on the fifth week. By planning its catering in this way Malév is working to please its regularly flying customers in particular.
Speaking at the briefing Krisztina Dudás, manager of the Product Development and Customer Relations Department, said, "When working out the new onboard catering the difficulty, and at the same time the beauty of the challenge, was provided by the need to compile a better quality, more modern range of menus while keeping - within the framework of the Malév restructuring programme - a very close control on the financial aspects. Since we continuously track the latest trends in the international industry as well as the changing catering habits and feedback of our customers, we believe that with this change we will be able to strengthen the positive assessment of our airline and continue to maintain our distinguished position achieved in international comparisons and surveys."
Source: Malév
22.04.2008