Food flight: SkyMeals LLC derivers high-end dishes that travelers can take on their plane trips.

RICHARD Katz keeps a photo of a flight steward offering a cut of roast beef on a silver platter to a passenger on his desk for inspiration.

The founder and chief executive of SkyMeals LLC wants to bring a bit of class back to airline travel, no small feat in these days of security checks, body searches and no-frills flight service.

"Adults aren't that much different from children. You need to eat and if you don't eat, you get cranky," Katz said. "The phrase 'comfort food' is overused, but that's the idea here, anything we can do to make our customers get where they're going in a better mood."

SkyMeals offers a range of high-end entrees, sandwiches, salads, desserts and even kids meals. Each meal is made to order, and there's a range of low-fat and low-salt options. Customers order 24 hours before their flight and the meal is delivered to the location of their choice. Katz's average ticket is between $40 and $50 and the most popular menu items are seared ahi, tequila lime chicken and the European brunch--a mixture of cured meats, pungent cheeses, olives and bread.

Katz said the biggest obstacle has been in getting people to change their routines. Instead of grabbing some fast food at the airport just before the flight, passengers have to plan ahead, calling the day before, line up the delivery of the food and carry one more item."

The first thing they ask is if it counts as a carry-on," Katz said, "which it doesn't." With most airport restaurant chains run by licensees who may not use top-of-the-line ingredients and almost all airline food having been previously frozen, Katz maintains that his vinyl-encased meals are healthier and better tasting.

Price may also be an obstacle, as not everyone can spare $50 for lunch the day before leaving on vacation.

Diana Fairechild, who started working as a stewardess for Pan Am Airlines in 1966 and now publishes Air Travel Health News, avers that it's "absolutely vital" to bring food along on airline trips. She's been trying to get people to do it since 1992, and suggests it can be done on the cheap, too.

"You can go to a health food store and put something together on your way to the airport, that may cost $10 or $15, or just make something yourself," Fairechild said. In her days working for the airline, she'd go out to eat the night before and order too much food, so she could carry leftovers on the plane.

Nonetheless, other consumers are willing to pay if the food is first-rate.

"I was nervous at fast," admitted Jeanne Ringe, a locally based nutrition consultant who frequently visits family on the East Coast. "I thought it wouldn't work, they wouldn't be able to find my house, the food wouldn't be any good."

But, she said, she was amazed at the "gourmet quality." Ringe typically orders a meal for herself (poached salmon) and her young daughter (peanut butter and banana). There's always leftover food for the ride from the airport. And, she added, she's gotten used to sad stares from fellow passengers.

"I usually share with them," she said. "There's plenty because they give you so much food."

Still, no matter how good the meals are, it takes a leap for a consumer to add pre-ordering the flight meal to the list of pre-trip requirements.

Katz is hoping to get a boost from a deal he recently cut with WallyPark LAX, a parking lot affiliated with the airport offering shuttle service to the terminal. SkyMeals customers using WallyPark can pick up their orders when they drop off their car, and club members get a discount on their meal.

"When we fast talked to Richard, it made sense," said Bryan Gusdorf, national director of marketing and sales for WallyPark. "Here's a service that caters to business and leisure traveler. With the airlines limiting their meals it just made sense with this partnership at WallyPark."

Gusdorf added that his company's goal is to bring this service to WallyPark's other locations in Denver and Seattle.

Early days

It all started with a trip to Paris.

Katz and business partner Alan Levin were inspired on a 1999 stay in the City of Light when, in an effort to make their trip last a little longer, they brought French cheeses, cured meats, wine, chocolate croissants and creme brulee onto the plane home with them.

"The reaction I got from everybody was more or less, 'Why didn't I do that?' That's when it occurred to me that there might be a market in this," Katz said.

So the pair, who had already invested in a number of businesses together, decided to launch Sky Meals. They were betting that customers with discerning palates wanted more than a Cobb salad from Wolfgang Puck Express. They'd provide a range of gourmet options that would be suitable for low-fat and low-salt diets.

The plan to open the business in September 2001 was dealt a blow by the terrorist attacks. Undeterred, Katz got the business of the ground in mid-2002, filling orders out of the kitchen of his Venice Beach catering operation, which he's since shuttered.

Last year, Katz decided to move the operations to Long Beach, where SkyMeals could service that city's airport and John Wayne, as well as LAX. He'll also make deliveries for Ontario and Burbank flights for an additional fee.

After spending $500,000 to start the business, Katz opened a Long Beach kitchen last year that cost between $150,000 and $200,000. Since the company revenues are still in the hundreds of thousands, Katz had to let two of five employees go. SkyMeals now has three employees and uses contractors when things in his kitchen really get cooking. He's been operating in the red since the business started, but expects to see black by the end of the year and is convinced the idea can work on a national basis.

After all, everybody needs to eat.

SkyMeals LLC

Core Business: Delivering gourmet carry-on meals to travelers before they leave for a flight

Employees in 2006:5

Employees in 2007:3

Goal: To expand the business into a national operation

Driving Force: Airline industry cutbacks that have reduced meal offerings

BY EMILY BRYSON YORK

Staff Reporter