Why are most European airports rubbish for food?

Legacy_user

In the UK, many of the airports eating places are chains. Even shops like Boots, WHSmiths and Superdrug have food.

In Europe, apart from a couple of exceptions, most are rubbish for food - choice as well as quality. My parents were delayed by 22 hours Monday/yesterday, and their vouchers were just accepted in one cafe and the queue for that was over 1.5 hours.

Been to Rhodes - one cafe selling quite disgusting looking hot dogs, burgers. Good job I purchased some crisps and cake bars at the supermarket opposite the hotel before I left. Dubrovnik - one cafe which snaked around a good third of the departure lounge. I was in the queue and one of the couples that was on the tour with me gave me some money and asked to get a coffee and a baguette - not fussed on the flavour. I know this was cheeky of them, but they struggle to stand best of times.

A friend was in Malta airport and her flight was delayed by a couple of hours. She bought a cheese salad cob. As soon as she got off the plane, she was sick. Only sucked on a few boiled sweets on the plane itself.

None of the book shops sell food - not even sweets.

bertiewhite

Because they've got a captive audience

benjus

You can't generalise a whole continent based on 3 fairly small airports.

In my experience Spanish and Italian airports tend to have decent food options. And you'll usually find that the major hub airports have a good selection.

jpsartre

It's really airport dependent. E.g. lots of good options in Copenhagen. It's not like Boots, WH Smith etc. offers state of the art cuisine either.

interstellaflyer

Boots and W H Smiths lol, overprice pre made sandwiches offering little or no choice for people like me who don!!!8217;t particularly like mayonnaise. I guess smaller airports do have less choice but let!!!8217;s face it you are probably turning up for a 2 hour flight surely most of us can make do with a snack and a drink and have a proper meal when we reach our destination, that said, even at Reus airport which is tiny, you can get cooked food and fresh sandwiches, baguettes and paninis. To be fair if you fly out of somewhere like Luton you also will ha e little choice food wise.

pogofish

Sounds more like rubbish airports - I've never had a problem finding decent (if somewhat expensive!) food ant any significant European airport - Most of which put most UK airports to shame.

pollypenny

All the American airports I have used had also had poor food.

Pollycat

ScarletMarble wrote: »

In the UK, many of the airports eating places are chains. Even shops like Boots, WHSmiths and Superdrug have food.

In Europe, apart from a couple of exceptions, most are rubbish for food - choice as well as quality. My parents were delayed by 22 hours Monday/yesterday, and their vouchers were just accepted in one cafe and the queue for that was over 1.5 hours.

Been to Rhodes - one cafe selling quite disgusting looking hot dogs, burgers. Good job I purchased some crisps and cake bars at the supermarket opposite the hotel before I left. Dubrovnik - one cafe which snaked around a good third of the departure lounge. I was in the queue and one of the couples that was on the tour with me gave me some money and asked to get a coffee and a baguette - not fussed on the flavour. I know this was cheeky of them, but they struggle to stand best of times.

A friend was in Malta airport and her flight was delayed by a couple of hours. She bought a cheese salad cob. As soon as she got off the plane, she was sick. Only sucked on a few boiled sweets on the plane itself.

None of the book shops sell food - not even sweets.

The sickness could have been caused by something she ate before she even got to the airport.