How are airline meals heated?
I’m a former Flight Attendant with two airlines. The food is usually heated in a convection oven. Microwaves can’t be used on planes for safety and practical reasons. Convection ovens have a fan, which pushes hot air over the food. This is both faster and means a lower cooking temperature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection_… The only downside is that all the meals had to be completely enclosed, either with a plastic cover or aluminum foil. If it fell out, the meal got all dried out and looked disgusting. Also, sometimes a passenger would hand us some food from home, often for a child, in plastic thinking we had microwaves. First class meals came in little aluminum containers and we had to put them on the dish (or in a serving dish to be served in front of them). The meals arrived from the caterers already partially cooked and covered, ready for the oven. They were loaded on racks directly into the oven or a
