The new divide between first class and economy

As cabin crew for an international airline, I love working in first class. In the briefing room, when all the crew are scrambling to bag their favourite positions before the start of the flight, I make sure to insist I’m the first-class dolly for the day. Usually no one minds, as some people are averse to tending to the whims of the upper-class jet set. What they might not realise is, since the dawn of the Ozempic age, working in first class is now much, much easier. There’s barely anything to do. Why? Because nobody eats anymore. Remember that famous line from Kim Kardashian, ‘no one wants to work anymore’? Well, nowadays, no one wants to eat anymore.

In 2024 the biggest difference between the members of the gilded class and economy is appetite levels. The former might nibble a rice cracker and have a few sips of Bollinger before waving it away with a wisp of a manicured hand, but there is virtually no meal service these days in the first class cabin. Class used to be defined by the difference in hygiene, referring to the working class as the great unwashed. A more accurate divider these days is the Ozempic class and the Nozempic class.

Social scientists have predicted that 60 per cent of the UK population will be on some form of GLP-1 receptor by 2030. This revolutionary drug will affect every aspect of the world economy in ways it is still impossible to predict. One early sign of the changes in consumer habits is that, for the first time in a decade (excluding Covid) McDonald’s sales are declining. The major fast-food chains face a Great Appetite Depression. As a worker on the frontlines of food service, catering to hundreds of people’s dietary needs on a daily basis, I have seen for myself that the class divide is now along dietary lines.

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Which isn’t bad news for me. Consider my last trip. I’m sitting up in the forward galley, just outside the cockpit, and no one has eaten a scrap of food for the last four hours. I sneak a peek beyond the galley curtain. Seven first class passengers are quietly sipping from Stanley cups, and occasionally picking at the minuscule tray of canapés I served up hours ago. I happily draw the curtain and go back to reading the latest true crime on my Kindle. The food will sit in the trolleys.

Now let’s contrast all that restraint and starvation with what goes on down the back in economy class. Simply put, anything that isn’t nailed down is fair game for passengers. It is rare that people refuse their meal in economy, and even if they do refuse, I will go to great lengths to explain to them that this is the only meal served for the duration of the flight and if they don’t eat now, it won’t be available later. I don’t do this out of concern for their rumbling bellies later on. I do it because I know from bitter experience that if they don’t eat now, they will be down in the galley scrounging food off me for the rest of the flight. No crumb of food is safe in economy. On my last red-eye flight from San Francisco, I was astonished at the gall of one passenger who actually swiped my lunch right off the galley counter. The audacity.

So I much prefer to work up the front of the plane. Not because I’m a crashing snob with a disdain for the working class, but because I quite like a few quiet hours to read in peace and not have my ham and cheese sandwich swiped from under my nose. And of course, I do enjoy those first class canapés that nobody seems to want anymore.