The June 2009 edition of the Spanair in-flight magazine “Spanorama” announces an “improvement” in the airline’s in-flight service.

“To improve the service and satisfaction of all its passengers, Spanair offers a new menu to purchase on board [...]“

Or to put it another way, you now have to pay for your own food and drink in economy class, just as Iberia started doing a few years ago.

However, unlike the last menu that I saw for Iberia, the prices are slightly lower.  A cup of coffee or a 0.33l  can of soft drink costs 2€ and a muffin costs 1.50€.  The bacon rolls and sandwiches are a bit pricey at 5€.  The best offer appears to be the 9€ “menu” - a warm meal with a drink, roll and dessert - available on flights longer than 2 hours.

This can cause angry scenes, as I recently discovered on a flight to Madrid, as many passengers who have booked their flights several months in advance only become aware of the new menu once they are in their seats on the aircraft.  However, complaints on my flight fell on deaf ears with the cabin crew, and the passengers were all the more confused when sandwiches and drinks were then served - free of charge - once airborne.

It appeared that the catering service in Frankfurt had loaded the wrong trolleys, but a closer inspection of the Spanair website has since revealed that flights between Germany and Spain are exempt from the new menu, meaning that for the moment I can still expect a sandwich and a drink on the way to Madrid, but will have to reach into my pocket for the connecting flight to Lanzarote.

And don’t think that you can take your own food on board that easily.  Not only are, of course, liquids banned in hand luggage, but in Madrid I witnessed passengers being forced to try every sandwich that had been detected by the x-ray scanners.

So I guess in future, the over-priced food and drink is going to be a part of flying on any economy ticket, not just with budget airlines.  Is it a way of making money out of the current security regulations?  Or is it helping keep the ticket prices low?

Either way, I wish the airlines would be honest with their passengers, and not try to sell it as an “improvement”.

Are the residents of Lanzarote “grumpy?”  I can’t say that would be my experience, and yet the Chamber of Commerce has launched a “friendliness campaign” to improve the image of the island!

If I had to think of places where the people in restaurants and hotels were unfriendly to their guests, then Lanzarote would probably not have featured very highly (although I can think of some good examples in Germany and the UK).  In fact, my only real complaint about restaurants on Lanzarote would be that they charge for rolls and butter without asking and sometimes feign a lack of English when there is a problem with the bill.

Perhaps they are worried about the falling numbers of visitors to the island this year.  But I would have thought that that had more to do with the World economy than with the attitude of the taxi drivers.

As far as the restaurants are concerned, investing in decent tranlsations of the menus might be a better investment!

One of the interesting things about visiting foreign countries can be the different type of food available.  Either there are local, previously unknown, delicacies.  Or there may be the same brands, but with different varieties of their products.  Sometimes there are even the same brands under different names (one of the best-known examples being Twix, known previously in Germany as “Raider”).

Of course, this can make shopping in a foreign country, especially in a foreign language, an interesting experience.

Now, I found the idea of a 24-hour supermarket in Puerto del Carmen innovative.  What I am not so thrilled about is reading today that the supermarket chain Lidl are building a store near Arrecife.

Not that I am opposed to Lidl - I shop there myself in Germany.  But I am wondering how much local produce they will be stocking, and how much it will be geared towards the tourists on the island?  Will you need a car to get there?

Let’s hope that it doesn’t have an adverse effect on the smaller supermarkets.