Brace for turbulence: The emerging tariff risk for airline catering

Within the inflight catering industry, we’re no strangers to disruption. 

Just in the past few years we’ve weathered a pandemic, navigated volatile supply chains, and started to embrace digital transformation. Now, a new threat is here: tariffs on key imported goods.

Much of what makes modern airline catering work — from specialized packaging to high-grade equipment to imported food ingredients like wine and cheese — comes from a complex web of international suppliers. 

According to recent estimates, imported goods make up more than 40% of a typical catering operation’s budget. The imposition of 10–25% tariffs on items like aluminum trays, meal containers, and certain food products could push industry-wide supply costs up by close to $200 million in the first year alone. This could have a significant impact on providers in a business where margins are often counted in fractions of a percent. And it comes on top of weakening ticket sales, which have already prompted several U.S. major airlines to reduce their flight schedules and withdraw earnings guidance for the year.

Tariff-related cost pressures could surface in several ways. Menu planning may need to become more conservative. Fewer meal variants, longer rotation cycles, and a greater reliance on standardization may be among them. Procurement teams could face difficult trade-offs between cost and quality, or between supply reliability and ingredient origin.

Airlines will face tough decisions on how much of these increases to absorb, and how much to pass along to passengers. A $1.50 increase in catering cost per passenger — modest on its own—could result in fare increases of $3-5 once all the operational layers are accounted for. 

Fabio Gamba, managing director of the Airline Catering Association, put it in stark terms in a recent interview: 

“Tariffs on food ingredients, packaging materials and specialized equipment will undoubtedly drive up ticket fares and onboard service costs. This approach risks undermining consumer confidence in air travel, and leading to a reduction in bookings, which in turn will jeopardize tens of thousands of catering jobs worldwide.”

Some catering operations could consolidate or restructure to offset cost increases. In regions where kitchen footprints are already tight or demand is uneven, tariff-driven cost pressures may accelerate decisions about staffing, automation, and centralization.

In this fast-moving environment, flexibility and scenario planning will be key. If providers and airlines haven’t yet started to embrace AI-driven technology to reduce their costs and increase productivity in meal provisioning, now is the time. 

Supply chain leaders may also need to revisit sourcing strategies, explore alternative suppliers, or renegotiate pricing with existing partners. Finance and commercial teams will be looking for models that help quantify the downstream effects of tariff-related cost increases on menu development, unit economics, and pricing.

Tariffs may not have been on the radar for airline catering a year ago — but they are now a critical part of the operating landscape. How providers and airline partners adjust will help define the next chapter in inflight food and service.