Introduction to Pre-Ordering Meals (“Meal Pre-Select”) with Delta Airlines
I have an upcoming international flight with Delta Air Lines and wanted to share the experience of how to pre-order your meal and how to view the full inflight menu. Pre-ordering a meal has its benefits as it’s possible Delta may otherwise run out of your preferred option onboard. Likewise, Delta sometimes offers pre-order exclusive meal options that you may desire over the standard options.
In this post, we’ll review who’s eligible to pre-order a meal, how to view the menu for your flight, and finally, how to pre-order your meal with Delta Air Lines.
Who is Eligible to Pre-Order a Delta Meal?
While there may be some route specific exceptions, generally, the following passengers can pre-order a meal with Delta Air Lines:
- Passengers traveling in Domestic First Class on an eligible flight with plated meal service
- Passengers traveling in the Delta One Cabin (including premium transcontinental routes, eligible flights to Hawaii, or long haul international flights)
- Passengers traveling long haul international in Delta Premium Select or Delta Comfort+
If you are in the first group flying Domestic First Class, Delta indicates you can expect meal service on flights at least 900 miles in length with a departure time prior to 9 PM. You’d be able to pre-order a meal in this case if your flight wasn’t going to be served a cold meal box (generally from smaller outstation airports where fresh catering is not supplied). Viewing the inflight menu that I discuss later on can help you see if you will get a plated meal or a boxed meal.
If you happen to traveling in Domestic First Class on flights longer than 2,300 miles, regardless of time, you should expect a fresh meal and an option to pre-order. See full details from Delta’s website below.
What is on the menu for my Delta Air Lines Flight?
Regardless of whether you are eligible to pre-order a meal, all passengers, including economy, can at least view the meals and snacks available on their flight at the following Delta menu website.
On the webpage, you enter your departure date, origin airport, and flight number. As of writing, it looks like you can view the menu for your flight about a month out. For example, I can view all the menus through the month of January as of January 6th. Note, these menus are subject to change, especially weeks out, so you might want to double check for any updates within a week of departure (which is when the meal pre-order window opens).
Once you’ve enter your flight details, you can select the appropriate cabin menu (including regular economy aka Delta Main).
Conveniently, the entire menu for the flight is available, including appetizers, main courses, desserts, and beverages.
As mentioned earlier, some Domestic First Class meals only include a boxed option rather than something that’s plated onboard. This tends to happen out of smaller outstation airports and you won’t have a pre-order meal selection option in this case. Luckily, this same Delta menu tool can help you to identify what to expect. For instance, if you are traveling from Milwaukee (MKE) to Salt Lake City (SLC) in the morning, you can expect two boxed options that you wouldn’t have a pre-order choice of ahead of time.
By comparison, if we look at a similar Delta flight leaving from the larger Chicago O’hare airport – hot meal options are present. In this case, you should be able to pre-order your Delta First Class meal ahead of time.
One final great use of Delta’s inflight menu tool, is viewing buy onboard snacks. This is particularly useful if you are traveling in economy without a meal service and want to consider buying something board. You’ll see an example of for purchase items below.
How can I Pre-Order my Delta Airlines Meal?
Now that we’ve seen who is generally eligible to pre-order Delta Airlines meals and how to view your inflight menu, let’s discuss how to pre-order a Delta meal option. Delta Airlines will email passengers 7 days prior to departure to indicate you can pre-order your meal. If you don’t receive this email, you can pre-order straight from the Delta mobile app as well within the 7 day window.
Below is an example of this pre-order email.
If you elect to use the Delta mobile app, first ensure you’ve added your reservation. Within the reservation and flight details, you should see an option to view meal selections.
Within this screen, you’ll find the meal selections available for pre-order, including any pre-order exclusives. If you do change your mind, you aren’t immediately locked into your choice. I was able to adjust mine after an initial selection but note the pre-order exclusives disappear as options within 24 hours of departure.
Delta also has a dine and rest choice available to have everything plated at once so you can sleep sooner. Finally, the same full menu we previously viewed on the Delta website is also available at the bottom of the pre-order choices.
How to Pre-Order Meals and View Your Inflight Delta Menu – Pilot Debrief
Delta has an easy to use process to view flights menus and pre-order your meals ahead of time. Pre-orders can be made through the mobile app or through an emailed link within 7 days of departure. I’d recommend doing so to better guarantee your desired meal or to select from a broader menu of choices than what’s available onboard. I do wish Delta would add some sort of indicator for domestic First Class to let you know if your flight was going to be eligible for a meal pre-order as it’s somewhat of a guessing game unless you do research into the flight menu.
