Flights of fancy

New Delhi: Would you care for Parmesan chicken piccata on fettuccine with mushroom cheese sauce served on custom-designed Rosenthal? That’s available roughly 30,000 feet above sea level and if you’re travelling business class on Jet Airways’ Mumbai-Delhi run.
Introduced on December 21, this uber-luxury culinary makeover that cost “crores of rupees” according to the airlines General Manager, inflight services (operations) Vimal Rai, is aimed at influential businessmen, politicians and, well, just rich people who fly this popular route.
With business class on this route alone yielding an enviable 80 per cent passenger load factor the airline has spotted a premium brand-building opportunity. “It’s our prime route in a way and we are giving it the attention it deserves. The crème de la crème travels on these flights so we can gain maximum visibility and have a major impact by targeting them,” Rai explains.
In the interests of making “flying domestic seem like flying international”, the new gourmet menu has been designed and prepared by masterchefs at Oberoi Flight Kitchens and includes such haute cuisine as Mediterranean roasted vegetable salad with pesto, pan-fried Bekti, mozzarella and tomato-stuffed chicken and berry and caramel soufflé for dessert, among other things.
Though a menu change can have an instant connect with passengers, the airline’s management reckoned that there was no point in changing the food without changing the way it is presented. So, German luxury crockery maker Rosenthal designed its porcelain crockery in a delicately worked gold-bordered pattern exclusively for the airline.
29/12/10 Manisha Pande/Business Standard

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Categories: Jet Airways Dec 2010