Seeing photos of celebrities drinking expensive Champagne on a plane always makes us wonder. Why pop open the good stuff when your perception of taste is completely different on a plane?

Food and Wine Taste Different at 40,000 Feet

At 40,000 feet you’re better off with the non-vintage Brut. With an air charter you can bring your own bottle on board, but we wouldn’t recommend anything you’ve been saving. So keep that 1999 Cote de Beaune Pinot Noir in the cellar and plump for a ripe, fruity blend instead - at such altitude you won’t be able to taste the subtlety or nuance of a legendary vintage.

The same goes for the food. With every air charter you can request exactly what food you’d like to eat, anything from a KFC bucket to a gourmet, chef-designed three-course meal. However, it’s not going to taste the same as when you’re on the ground. Flying actually improves the flavor of some ingredients with tomatoes being the classic example: why else do you think Bloody Marys have always been the in-flight cocktail of choice?

7 Reasons Why Food and Wine Taste Different on a Plane

The food and wine doesn’t change once you take off. And it will be same once you land. It’s your perceptions that changes in mid-air.

1. Pressurized cabins

The inside of an aircraft is pressurized. Or at least it is now - read more about the history of aviation and the non-pressurized cabins of the 1940s and 1950s. That means that your body is also pressurized, influencing your ability to taste sweetness. Airplane meals are very salty, because your body also can’t fully appreciate salt in a pressurized cabin at 40,000 feet. Like sweetness, your perception of this flavor is diminished.

2. 12% humidity

Aircraft cabins are incredibly dry. Just cut open a bread roll at 30,000 feet and see how quickly it hardens. With the cabin pressure and air conditioning the humidity drops to just 12%, which is less than most deserts. This dryness also reduces the sensitivity of how you taste sweet and salty flavors. However, our perception of sour and bitter flavors is virtually unaffected.

3. We lose our sense of smell

Some studies claim that 80% of what we taste is actually smell. That’s not good news for in-flight food and wine. Our odor receptors don’t work correctly when in the air, due to the parched cabin air and our inability to produce evaporating nasal mucus. That’s the main reason everything can taste so bland on a plane.

4. Re-heated food

Airplane food can never be fresh on a commercial flight. Food safety standards mean all meals must be cooked before takeoff. The food is cooked, packed and chilled. Then it must be refrigerated and reheated in a convection oven. That’s hardly a recipe for gourmet dining.

5. Umami

Ah, the mysterious fifth taste. Studies show that umami taste improves on planes, enhanced by background noise and your body pressure. Guess what’s high in umami - tomatoes. Plus spinach, sardines, mushrooms and soy sauce, although we don’t see these featured in cocktails. Grilled meats are also high in umami, as is cheese. It’s these foods you want to be eating on a plane.

6. Wine turns acidic and tannic

The dry pressurized environment makes wine taste more acidic and tannic. This overpowers a wine’s subtlety, meaning that your 1999 Cote de Beaune Pinot Noir won’t reveal the benefits of your patient cellaring. On an aircraft you should avoid wines with high tannin structure. Instead, go for crisp, light wines with strong scents - Spanish Rioja is always a good choice. Or of course you could just finish the bottle before you reach cruising altitude.

7. Dehydration

Being in an aircraft cabin puts you at increased risk of dehydration. Commercial airlines don’t seem to notice, given the paltry amount of water they serve. Dehydration reduces your sense of taste and smell further, so once again, food and wine taste bland.

Can Food Really Taste Better on a Plane?

For food to taste good in the air it must be developed in the air. Well, maybe not an experimental kitchen with open fires at 40,000 feet, but definitely with the in-flight effects fully encountered for. So think more umami, more salt, a focus on subtle sour and bitter flavors. How about some lobster thermidor? That’s packed with umami and was the meal of choice on Scandinavian Airlines during the 1960s and 1970s.

Many airlines have partnered with popular restaurants to create their in-flight menus - but a famous executive chef isn’t necessarily a specialist on in-flight conditions. Triple Michelin-star Dutch chef Jonnie Boer now does the KLM menu. Sure he can produce something incredible at ground level, but that’s not what airplane food requires. Travel first-class with Singapore Airlines and its Japanese kaiseki master Yoshihiro Murata’s menu. Kaiseki?! Such a complex meal is wasted at that altitude.

We prefer the approach of Air Culinaire Worldwide. They have a full-time research and development team based out of Florida. Their approach is to search for foods and flavors that will taste better in the air than on the ground. This team then works in partnership with executive chefs to build customized menus, which can be different for every client and every flight. They combine locally-sourced foods with scientific in-flight knowledge. And they can develop and produce a menu with just one day’s notice, flying it out of almost 2000 FBOs around the world.

Customize Your In-Flight Catering and More

Air Culinaire Worldwide are our preferred partner for in-flight catering on chartered flights. Choosing the menu is just one element of the customization available to you. Book a private charter on Airvel and you call the shots. Personalize everything to your choosing, both in the air and the connections on the ground.

A dedicated concierge organizes everything and you don’t need a membership or jet card to receive such service.

With Airvel anyone can fly private charter. Welcome to the world’s leading booking engine for air charters. Specialist in-flight catering is just one example of how we improve your travel experience.