Many longtime airline passengers fondly remember meals during flights, but in general, those days are past. Instead, passengers get the option to pay for food — that, or they are served the tiniest tastes of snacks. This is not only frustrating but wasteful, as one Reddit user pointed out in a recent thread.

What happened?

The post in r/Anticonsumption contained two photos of a bag of chips. "The snack provided during my flight," the original poster wrote. "The photo is right after I opened it. The amount of plastic for so little food…"

The images revealed LATAM Airlines-branded tortilla chips with a nacho cheese flavoring. They came in a hand-size plastic package, even though there was only 12 grams of food inside — just three or four small chips.

"Why even bother distributing snacks at that point?" one user asked.

Why is a disappointing airline snack important?

Aside from the frustration of getting such a tiny amount of food on a flight after paying hundreds of dollars for a ticket, this practice has a surprisingly large impact. It isn't cost-effective for businesses to hand out such tiny amounts of food in such large packages; the ratio of plastic to food is wasteful and drives up costs, and that is turned back on the consumer. 

Meanwhile, this practice generates a truly unnecessary amount of plastic waste. Since airline passengers barely benefit from the snack, one might argue that there don't need to be chips on the flight at all; and they definitely don't need to be in bags that large if they're going to be mostly empty. The plastic waste ends up in landfills, generating microplastics, tiny particles of plastic that enter the food chain — including water sources and food consumed by humans.

Is LATAM Airlines doing anything about this?

According to the company website, it had put a great deal of effort into eliminating single-use plastics from its in-flight service by the time of this incident. "At the end of 2023, the group achieved the elimination of more than 1.7 tons of single-use plastics in all the operations, the equivalent of 96% of the baseline," the company stated. That included using reusable utensils in the cabin instead of plastic ones. The chip bags appeared to be an unfortunate holdover.

This is part of a wider movement among airlines to switch to biodegradable and reusable materials.

What can I do to reduce waste when flying?

Airline passengers are a captive audience, so you might not have much choice about the products offered to you during a flight. However, you can behave responsibly with the products you're given. For example, research the waste and recycling policies of the airline you're using. Choose a provider with a strong track record, and dispose of your recyclables and trash responsibly after your flight.

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