Prawns out, chickens in to cut airline meal costs

A meal is served during a media event for Scoot, a unit of Singapore Airlines Ltd, at Changi Airport in Singapore on Nov 26, 2020. (File photo: Bloomberg)
A meal is served during a media event for Scoot, a unit of Singapore Airlines Ltd, at Changi Airport in Singapore on Nov 26, 2020. (File photo: Bloomberg)

One of the world’s biggest airline caterers is swapping prawns for chicken on menus more regularly to help save costs.

Singapore’s SATS Ltd, which provides third-party services including catering to airlines, said prawns that used to be available on certain flights are routinely being replaced by chicken as the meat is cheaper.

SATS said Monday evening that its quarterly income shrank to S$0.5 million (US$375,000) from S$5.1 million a year earlier. Its shares slid as much as 8% the following day, before closing down 4.7%, their biggest loss in three months.

SATS served 49.1 million meals in the first nine months of fiscal 2023, an increase of 25% from a year earlier.

The global aviation sector is bringing back capacity and staff to cope with a resurgence in travel. The recovery has been staggered as countries reopened at different times, with China — one of the world’s biggest markets for air travel — only recently ending its strict Covid curbs.

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Vocabulary

  • aviation: the flying of aircraft - การบิน
  • capacity: the amount of something that can be produced or done - ความสามารถในการ (ระบาย, ผลิต etc.)
  • fiscal (adj.): connected with a budget; connected with the government budget, i.e., public money - เกี่ยวกับงบประมาณ
  • replace: to change from one thing to another - แทน
  • resurgence: a new increase of activity or interest in a particular subject or idea which had been forgotten for some time - การฟื้นคืน, การกลับสู่สภาพ
  • routinely: regularly, done often - จำเจ, บ่อยๆ, ซ้ำซาก
  • share: any of the units of equal value into which a company is divided and sold to raise money. People who own shares receive part of the company's profits - หุ้น
  • shrank: when something became smaller smaller หดตัว, เล็กลง -
  • stagger (verb): to arrange for events that would normally happen at the same time to start or happen at different times -
  • third-party (noun): a person/organisation who is involved in a situation in addition to the main people involved - บุคคลที่สาม
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