European airlines are so cheap. Everything that makes a flight less suffering costs extra. I flew with Turkish airlines once, and they just include a meal for everyone. It's so much less stressful to fly when you don't have to worry about food.
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2026
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There are many different European airlines, not all that cheap.
Lufthansa, Finnair, SAS all don't serve meals for everyone.
I mean if you fly for 1-2h a meal is overkill
Why would you need a meal on a 1 to 3 hour flight?
Honestly I don't get the need for meals full stop, even crossing the Atlantic.
Airplane food is, at best, extremely mid. I prefer to just do a fast in the flight and get something local once on the destination.
Especially when i'm heading to a place with great food like Mexico i see little purpose in eating mid flight. And it's not like you need the calories just sitting in that chair either.
There are many airlines like Turkish airlines in Europe. You are talking about the budget airlines. Those are extremely cheap but do not provide comfort and charge extra for every little thing.
You mean budget airlines such as Lufthansa?
Lufthansa is considered budget? TIL, the one time I flew with them it was a short flight, seemed nicer than my experiences with other budget airlines
No it's not, that's the point.
I checked some flights out of curiosity - they do include onboard catering. How often do you fly Lufthansa and what class?
On your typical 2 hour or so flights, the only thing you get is a piece of chocolate. You have to pay extra for a meal.
The entirety of Lufthansa's onboard catering is β¬0.33 per passenger.
It's incredible how easily passengers are placated by an 8-cent piece of chocolate.
That's how they sold tickets for less than 30β¬. If you included all the "extras" similar to a normal flagship airline, you would pay the same or even more on the low costs
I flew to Asia a few times and there's always a few meals included. But they were always Asian airlines.
Last time I flew back with a Norwegian airline and I didn't get to eat at all for the entire way and I was not prepared for that.
I think I remember flying Norwegian from the US to Europe once (~a decade ago), and it was budget but still had meals included. However I believe theyβve since gone bankrupt, and thereβs a new airline called Norse Atlantic that is ultra budget and wonβt feed you unless you purchase meals beforehand.
But with a little bit of homework the ultra budget flights can be nice. I did a Paris to Los Angeles flight on French Bee a few years ago and the base fare was under $300, so I didnβt sweat pre-buying seat selection and meals for another 50 or $60.
I flew with air Portugal and I had a meal, same with Aegean airlines. Airlines differ.
Sure, but after like 6 flights or so, I just kind of assumed there's always food when you have such a long flight
I quickly looked into this the other day when the first articles on it appeared. IIRC there's a regulation that states children under a certain age must be accompanied by an adult - and that includes sitting right next to them. Ryanair's policy was to charge the adult the standard "seat booking" extra. Up to 2 kids would then be given seats next to them without additional fees.
So the problem seems to be that if you're travelling with small children, you *must* pay to book yourself a seat.
Ryanair were protesting about any change, no surprise there of course, but I suspect they don't really have to waive the booking fee for the adult, rather they could just allow them to not pay to book a seat, and make sure they are allocated one randomly with their children next to them.
In any case, I'm left wondering if this can be a worthwhile way for the EU to spend its time. Given how much it costs for any large administrative body to do anything, this really doesn't seem like it should be a big priority.
When you are a parent, there are so many extra costs everywhere, that saving a couple of euros on seat bookings a couple of times a year isn't going to make any significant difference.
While I get what you are saying, I'm not entirely sure where else could the people focused on consumer/passenger rights be focused on, considering it was introduced as part of a series of other reforms around this particular form of travel which millions of Europeans use. It isn't like this was a whole procedure brought about just for the seating of kids, either.
How tragic for Lufthansa, who just recently put their latest cash grab into effect. Now they'll continue to make the boarding experience on par with Ryanair while they won't reap the benefits from false advertising through booking portals.