Inflight Catering Market

Market Overview:

The global inflight catering market size reached US$ 12.8 Billion in 2022. Looking forward, IMARC Group expects the market to reach US$ 16.4 Billion by 2028, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 3.96% during 2023-2028.

Inflight catering refers to food services provided by airline companies to passengers during air travel. These confectionery items, baked goods, beverages, and meals are specially designed by specialist airline catering professionals based on various flight classes, including economy, business and first-class. This, in turn, enables organizations to offer quality and quantity snacking options for providing a better customer experience and generating revenue. At present, it is available in varying types, including full service, low cost, and hybrid. 

Inflight Catering Market Trends:

The widespread adoption of inflight catering across the aviation industry on account of the increasing competition amongst the airlines represents one of the key factors driving the market growth. In line with this, the need for serving enhanced onboard dining experience is contributing to the market growth. This is further supported by the implementation of high-level services, including meal pre-selection, mixed buy order, and complimentary catering options for fulfilling individual passenger requirements and complying with the hybrid operational scenarios at lower prices. Significant technological advancements, along with rising automation in food and beverage (F&B) industry, such as the utilization of tablets and mobile devices for ordering meals, thus ensuring the smooth functioning and management of catering services are acting as other major growth-inducing factors. Besides this, favorable initiatives being undertaken by governments of various countries for elevating the inflight catering standards by ensuring food safety, hygiene and sanitization, especially during the ongoing global outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are further creating a positive outlook for the market growth. The market is also driven by rising consumer expenditure capacities, steadily increasing number of air travelers, and the introduction of premium meal plans by airline companies and catering services.

Key Market Segmentation:

IMARC Group provides an analysis of the key trends in each sub-segment of the global inflight catering market report, along with forecasts at the global, regional and country level from 2023-2028. Our report has categorized the market based on food type, flight service type and aircraft seating class.

Breakup by Food Type:

• Meals
• Bakery and Confectionary
• Beverages
• Others
   

Breakup by Flight Service Type:

• Full-Service Carriers
• Low-Cost Carriers
   

Breakup by Aircraft Seating Class:

• Economy Class
• Business Class
• First Class
   

Breakup by Region:

• North America
  • United States
  • Canada
• Asia-Pacific
  • China
  • Japan
  • India
  • South Korea
  • Australia
  • Indonesia
  • Others
• Europe
  • Germany
  • France
  • United Kingdom
  • Italy
  • Spain
  • Russia
  • Others
• Latin America
  • Brazil
  • Mexico
  • Others
• Middle East and Africa
   

Competitive Landscape:

The competitive landscape of the industry has also been examined along with the profiles of the key players being AAS Catering Co. Ltd, Abby’s Catering, Cathay Pacific Catering Services (H.K.) Ltd. (Cathay Pacific Airways), DO & CO Aktiengesellschaft, Emirates Flight Catering (The Emirates Group), Flying Food Group, Gategroup, Jetfinity, KLM Catering Services Schiphol, LSG Sky Chefs (Lufthansa AG), Sats Ltd. (Singapore Airlines), Saudi Airlines Catering, and Universal Weather and Aviation Inc.

Report Coverage: