Things are really heating up again in the last part of our redblog special: we fill you in on what’s so special about the service above the clouds, and what the Cabin Voyage Reports are all about.
Things heat up above the clouds
How do things actually work with the in-flight ovens? We’ve already given you some of the details in our redblog articles “Culinary highlights at DO & CO: the hot kitchen” and “Culinary highlights: the road to the airport”. The trolleys carrying the meals from DO & CO are prepared for loading at the airport by Skygourmet, the logistics service of DO & CO. Finally, the oveninserts containing the hot meals are placed straight in the in-flight ovens by airport staff during loading. Short- or medium-haul aircraft have up to 6 ovens on board, by the way!
Then things heat up: about 20 minutes before being served, the crew turn on the ovens containing the hot meals. After being heated up for 18 to 22 minutes, the meals are taken out of the ovens, placed on the trolleys and served on the trays. Enjoy your meal! 
Feedback above the clouds
Did you enjoy your meal? After every flight, flight attendants take feedback from passengers and enter it in the EVEREST system of Austrian Airlines. The reports produced are called Cabin Voyage Reports, include 5 different categories and include, as well as technical details from the cabin, a ‘Catering’ category. This lets us gather and passed on praise and criticism from passengers. Indirect feedback is also recorded:
“Customer feedback might show us, for example, that when it comes to the choice passengers are given between a hot meal of chicken and pasta (we might be serving 60% chicken meals and 40% pasta, for instance), the share we’re using of each doesn’t match what people actually request. If this turns out to be the case, we can adjust it!” Alexander Mayer, Head of Inflight Product & Cabin Standards, explains.
Feedback on Catering is then gone through in a weekly meeting held with DO & CO. At these meetings, an average of 500 reports are summarised and passed on. DO & CO then either implements these immediately or integrates a new process to take the feedback into consideration.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our culinary highlights – in the next redblog, you’ll find all the culinary photos of our journey into the DO & CO kitchens collected together again. We’ll see each other later – above the clouds! 
