This Asian Airline Plans to Open a Fast Food Restaurant Serving Its Inflight Menu

Feb. 18, 2019

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2 min read

This Asian Airline Plans to Open a Fast Food Restaurant Serving Its Inflight Menu

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This might be a first. AirAsia's CEO is planning to open a fast food restaurant featuring the Malaysian airline's onboard menu.

“Our food is fantastic," said Tony Fernandes, Air Asia Group’s CEO, on Larry King Now last Friday. "We believe in it so much that we’re going to start a fast-food restaurant out of it. It’s called Santan."

Santan, which translates to 'coconut milk' in Malay, is the name AirAsia's inflight menu.

The food choices stem from data the airlines collected from around 400 million passengers, featuring a variety of dishes ranging from local favorites such as chicken tikka masala with garlic naan, spiral pasta with chicken sausage, Bukhara chicken biryani and plenty more.

TPG contributor Richard Kerr, who flew AirAsia back in 2015, enjoyed his inflight meal (which was the now-discontinued nasi lemak, a Malaysian dish of spicy chicken served with coconut rice) and said that while his inflight meal of the Malaysian national dish didn't earn any points on presentation, he "was happily surprised by its taste," and he was "impressed by AirAsia X’s extensive in-flight menu."

AirAsia's menu. Photo by Richard Kerr/TPG.

While it's most likely the Santan eatery will open in its home country of Malaysia first, further details on when this restaurant will be opening or where have not yet been released. TPG did not receive a response to a request for comment from AirAsia, but according to Skift, an AirAsia spokesperson said that there will be an announcement about it soon.