Chelsea Food Services
Chelsea Food Services is an airline catering company based at Continental Center I in Downtown Houston, Texas.[1] The company is a subsidiary of United Airlines (inherited from United's (2010) merger with Continental Airlines, the previous owner and creator of the company) making it currently the only airline catering company to be operated in-house by a United States-based airline (previously, American Airlines created and operated its own catering company called Sky Chefs Inc, now known as LSG Sky Chefs and owned by Lufthansa). The company employs 2,200 workers and has no official website.
Locations
Chelsea operates kitchens at the following airports:
- Cleveland Hopkins International Airport - Cleveland, Ohio
- Denver International Airport - Denver, Colorado
- George Bush Intercontinental Airport - Houston, Texas
- Newark International Airport - Newark, New Jersey
- Honolulu International Airport - Honolulu, Hawaii
In addition to United Airlines itself, some other Chelsea customers include Air France, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Emirates Airline, Frontier Airlines, KLM, Singapore Airlines, China Airlines, Iceland Air, Jetstar Airways, World Airways and Omni International Airlines.
On October 1, 2010, Continental Airlines and UAL Corporation merged to form United Continental Holdings. At the time of the merger, United held contracts with rivals Gate Gourmet and LSG Sky Chefs at its hubs, including its hub at Denver International Airport, where until January 2015 United held a contract with LSG Sky Chefs.
On December 15, 2010, United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek in an interview with Bloomberg commented and said "The company will continue to use Continental’s Chelsea inflight catering unit, while also using other suppliers". Chelsea Food Services will begin to cater to United Airlines flights at the carrier's largest hub at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport in the near future. As of 2012, Chelsea now caters all United flights out of Houston Intercontinental Airport, Newark International Airport, and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Starting January 2015, all United flights are now catered by Chelsea at Denver International Airport, however, catering for the United Airlines Red Carpet Club currently continues to be provided by LSG Sky Chefs. United continues to hold contracts with Gate Gourmet at its other pre-merger hubs, however, in January 2016, United will be switching to LSG Sky Chefs at its hub at O'Hare International Airport. There are currently no plans to open additional Chelsea kitchens at any of the pre-merger United hubs.
Competitors
- Gate Gourmet
- LSG Sky Chefs
- Servair
- Flying Food Group
- Cara Operations
- SATS Ltd
- Dnata
References
- ↑ "02n-0278-c00313-vol25.pdf." Food and Drug Administration. May 13, 2004. Retrieved on October 6, 2010.