No free food in coach; steak, beer at the airport

By Joe Brancatelli

• Continental Airlines has announced that it will join other legacy carriers by dropping free meals on coach flights. Didn’t know Continental still offered free meals in coach? It did, in meal-time windows that had become so miniscule that you can be forgiven for not knowing. By the fall, free grub in the back of the bus will be gone, except on those few Continental domestic flights that exceed six hours.

• The Palm, a New York steakhouse that has, er, staked out a nationwide presence, has come full circle and opened a branch of the chain in Terminal 4 of New York/Kennedy Airport.

• Lufthansa has opened a beer garden in one of its business-class lounges at Munich. Located in a lounge in Terminal 2, the garden opened on March 23 and is a cooperative effort with Franziskaner, a noted “weiss bier” brewer. Of course, there’ll be pretzels and draught beers tapped from a barrel. This is Bavaria, after all.

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Joe Brancatelli is editor and publisher of JoeSentMe.com, a non-commercial Web site for business travelers. Copyright 2009 by Joe Brancatelli. Licensed by contract for Orbitz use.

Tagged: New York