United Airlines will soon be introducing cold brew onboard its flights. This was first rumored a couple of weeks ago, and is now official — talk about an exciting and long overdue development!
United Airlines to serve illy cold brew onboard flights
As of July 1, 2024, United will start serving illy cold brew onboard flights, in all cabins on most flights over 300 miles. It will be available for purchase in economy, while it will be complimentary in premium cabins. United will be serving the “classico” cold brew in an 8.45 ounce can.
United has a longstanding partnership with illy, and serves brewed illy coffee onboard, as well as illy coffee in its lounges. So it makes sense that United is also partnering with illy when introducing cold brew.
While United won’t be the first US airline to offer cold brew or iced coffee, the airline will have it available on the most flights. Delta serves Explorer cold brew, but it’s only available on select premium routes, so you won’t find it on most flights.
In early 2023, Southwest also started serving Community Coffee’s Espresso + Cream iced coffee. However, the airline has already cut that. Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned, as it’s more of a sugar drink than a coffee, given that the 8.5 ounce bottle has 150 calories and 20 grams of sugar.
So United introducing illy cold brew on all flights is quite noteworthy, especially as the airline will serve the non-sugary version. My only concern is that I wouldn’t be surprised if only a very limited number of cans will be loaded per flight, and it’ll be like a lottery to actually get it.
Why cold brew on airplanes is awesome
Coffee is something I’m passionate about, especially in the context of travel. For many of us, coffee powers us through jetlag and early mornings and late nights. In my opinion it’s such an easy area where airlines and hotels can differentiate themselves with minimal effort.
Admittedly this just reflects my preferences, but I’ll always remember an airline or hotel that has especially good and readily available coffee.
Personally I can’t make sense of how long it has taken for major US carriers to start serving cold brew coffee:
- Americans love cold brew, so if you’re going to listen to customer feedback, that’s one easy area in which to do so
- Airplane coffee usually isn’t great, given the water tanks that are used; cold brew is a great alternative, since you can enjoy a caffeinated drink without having to consume water from the plane’s tanks
- Personally I prefer not to drink alcohol when traveling domestically, but I feel like major airlines really have quite limited decent non-alcoholic drink selections; sometimes I get bored of drinking just water or Diet Coke, and no US airline has decent juice, so cold brew is an awesome alternative
Anyway, I’ve been writing about how I wish airlines would introduce cold brew as far back as 2017 (and probably earlier than that), so I’m happy to see this finally becoming increasingly common.
Bottom line
United Airlines will introduce illy cold brew onboard flights as of July 2024. It’ll be available on most flights of over 300 miles, complimentary in premium cabins, and available for purchase in economy. It’s nice to see the concept of cold brew onboard flights catching on with more airlines. United will be the first global US carrier to have cold brew on virtually all flights.
Anyone excited to see cold brew coming to United Airlines?
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