Air Canada is donating its inflight food to families in need
On March 26, Air Canada announced it would begin donating fresh food originally intended for inflight meals to vulnerable Canadians and families in need.
Like many other airlines around the globe, Air Canada has significantly reduced and suspended many of its flight services in light of coronavirus. However, this unexpected and unprecedented change has left many airlines with a surplus of food. Air Canada and the Air Canada Foundation are working with Second Harvest, a Canadian Food Rescue organization, to redistribute fresh food items from Air Canada’s inflight kitchens to Canadians across seven cities.
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"While so many of us are staying home during these extraordinary times, we also remain united in taking care of each other. These difficult moments remind us of the importance of continuing to support our communities and help Canadian families in need. Since we work with catering facilities across Canada, the network that Second Harvest offers through their national FoodRescue.ca platform enables us collectively to get these ready-to-eat food items to those who need it most as quickly as possible," said Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources and Communications Officer at Air Canada.
So far, Air Canada has managed to donate over 5,000 pounds of food according to the press release. These food items include items such as fresh veggies, salads, sandwich wraps, muffins, milk and more.
Both American Airlines and Delta have cut their inflight service offerings, but there's been no word on wether or not they plan to donate any surplus food.
Air Canada has suspended service to all but 13 of its 53 U.S. destinations starting April 1, the airline said. Airports it will continue to serve are: Boston (BOS), Chicago O’Hare (ORD), Denver (DEN), Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Houston (IAH), Los Angeles (LAX), Newark (EWR), New York LaGuardia (LGA), Orlando (MCO), San Francisco (SEA), Seattle (SEA), Washington Dulles (IAD) and Washington National (DCA).
The airline has also cut its international network of 101 destinations back to just Delhi (DEL), Frankfurt (FRA), Hong Kong (HKG), London Heathrow (LHR), Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and Tokyo during April. Domestically in Canada, the airline will cut its network to 40 airports, down from 62.