I’m a big fan of coffee — I drink a lot of it at home, and enjoy it even more when traveling. Along those lines, we haven’t seen airlines do much to innovate coffee service in economy. However, one European carrier is testing something very cool, and I hope the trial proves successful.
Continue reading: Eurowings Trials Genius Inflight Coffee Cart
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
A colleague of mine has a theory about airline served drinks; “If it doesn’t come from a sealed bottle or can …. don’t drink it”.
He is married to an ex-FA, she convinced him of the virtues of abstinence when it comes to onboard drinks.
I wouldn’t consider Eurowings an ULTRA low cost carrier (ULCC) but rather a low cost carrier (LCC) because as a frequent traveler (Gold) with United, Lufthansa, Air Canada, ANA lounge access is granted and they mostly use the regular terminals (and not some remote ULCC terminals) and fly to the actual city (instead of flying to Hahn/Weeze/Girona which are >1h away from Frankfurt/Dortmund/Barcelona). Also, Eurowings does have a (European) business class, is a network carrier (rather than point-to-point), has real seats and real tray tables.
On the other hand, in the cheapest fare only a personal item is allowed (it’s not enforced though) and airport check in costs extra (unlike the ULCC, Eurowings does not close online check in couple hours before departure).
Europeans are much more discriminating about their coffee quality than Americans and coffee doesn't have the level of penetration in Asia for something like this to be as big of a hit but kudos for the concept.
And, yes, this is just an airline version of what is available in hotels, hospital waiting rooms and bus stations even in the US. I may have missed it but I didn't see that it uses bottled water so still likely uses airplane water.
Another ChatGPTim fluff.
"coffee doesn't have the level of penetration in Asia"
Where did you get your data? DOT?
and you truly don't realize that the percentage of coffee drinkers in Asia is the same as the US or Europe or S. America?
I would assume that the water is stored in a big canister in the trolley. This will most likely be filled with fresh water in the catering facility.
While I wouldn’t necessarily drink tap water from the lavatories, I do not see any risk drinking aircraft coffee, tea, juice or coke from a big bottle etc.
Yeah sure, in theory a flight attendant could’ve spit in the Coke bottle or juice carton between flights….but not likely as other attendants are around. (Then you shouldn’t go to restaurants).
And tea/coffee is safe not only because it is boiled but also because the canisters are frequently cleaned and desinfected.
That’s why we do not read constant reports of frequent travellers with Diarrhea because they had an onboard coffee.
it would be ideal if it were bottled or at least commercially filtered water. I would love for someone to be able to confirm
As Peter already mentioned; what made you describe Eurowings (who took over intra-European routes from the LH parent company at all German airports except Frankfurt [FRA] and Munich [MUC]) as ultra low cost carrier?
Love it. Would work on European carriers. Imagine this on Alitalia/ITA! Could work well on ME3 too. Would not work so well on American carriers where folks don't drink espresso or capuccino as much. If the machine did Starbucks double chai extra foam soy milk double pump vanilla lattes then maybe it would work in the US lol
Even in the absence of a solid definition, Eurowings most definitely doesn't qualify as a ULCC in a universe that also contains Wizz Air and Ryanair. Ben tends to be pretty liberal with the term, sometimes to the point of losing all meaning, but still.
If we take Southwest or Jetblue as the original LCCs (in contrast with legacy 'full-service' airlines), then the likes of Ryanair, AirAsia or Cebu Pacific perfected the model to an absurd degree to become ULCCs. At the same time, there are carriers that are simply lower cost base offshoots of their parent airlines, and EW is just that. If EW were an ULCC, then LH would have to be one as well.
LOL it's an absurd comment. Vietnam and Indonesia have some of the best coffee/coffee cultures on Earth. Coffee chains and independent shops proliferate in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, every major city in Asia. I could go on but it's Saturday and I'm just killing time before my alma mater wins the ACC championship.
Agreed.
I would say "Lufthansa's low-cost subsidiary" i.e. where they pay their staff less than the legacy carrier.
Very clever, and some airlines will watch the result. Also imagine the financial perspective if it was aligned with a coffee partner.
A different comment... about the water. There's constant talk about the quality of water from the internal tanks, which seems reasonable...but when was the last time we read an article about passengers getting sick from the water supply on an aircraft?
It’s not about getting sick - the water is often boiled so not a risk.
It just tastes terrible because they’re never cleaned. Airlines with very old fleets like delta are particularly bad.
I’m curious. “They’re never cleaned”. I really have no idea about that. Where’s your source for the comment? Thanks.
The only issue I see with this contraption is noise. Coffee machines are loud! Noise cancelling headphones will be essential when this thing is pumping out those lattes.
I think such a product would be great for Norse, or any other ultra-low-cost airline with widebodies. That would address the issue Ben mentioned about whether it's worth having such a machine take up an entire cart on a narrowbody. On a widebody, the extra galley space and larger plane capacity should make it a worthwhile investment.
You could sell 60 coffees on a 1.5 flight around Europe. That's €300 extra per flight. 4 flights is €1200 per day. That's great economics for a LCC. You'd chuck out the duty free/scratch-card cart to make way for those beverage numbers.
Heard the same from someone working at a truly major aircraft maintenance shop. There must be a lot of mould in the whole system which they do not seem to get rid of.
Probably because their service - and especially their food!!! - is.
Certainly not their cost base.
I remember being on a UAX flight on an E-145. The FA slides out a water reservoir from the bulkhead, and fills it with several gallon jugs of spring water. The coffee actually was drinkable.
Considering the size of the machine it's probably just a machine processing either soluble coffee or bagged concentrate and powder creamer into whatever drink you want.
It also does not make a lot of sense heating water to 85°C on battery power as the battery would need to be large thus heavy. The battery is probably only used to power the screen, controller and pump and the whipper use to froth those soluble powders into a freshly brewed illusion.
I think it's more realistic hot water is held in thermos bottle, for example in the cart below the machine. So full on tank water.
I think everyone is jumping to a lot of conclusions very fast and assuming this product on a Low Cost subsidiary is way more premium than it really is...
So the machine is called Sky Barista from company Sky Tender and was used by Salam Air in Oman in 2024.
https://skytendersolutions.com/skybarista-one/#slide-out-widget-area
You can see it's a machine reconstituting soluble coffee and creamer with options for bouillon or hot chocolate. It has an option for a insulated hot water tank which probably leads to a much smaller battery.
Amazing! Where can I get one. This would be perfect for our business. Does anyone know who the manufacturer is ?
Regards
Greg T
With the rider ‘if it’s working’ as per Ben’s breakfast buffet comment, yes, I’d happily pay. Just one cup would soon confirm if the airplane brews are as good at 30,000ft as some certainly are, for the price, at ground level.
Where would we hear this? None of the times I've been sick on an airplane special investigators came to my home/hotel.