The first-ever Santan Food Festival

CEBU, Philippines - A troop of Philippine media and influencers was recently whisked to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the Santan Food Festival, hosted by AirAsia. It was the largest inflight- food tasting event in Asia, featuring meals from across the region.

The event, on May 22, showcased the gastronomical delights of Santan hot meals from across AirAsia’s network, including the latest signature dish, Thai Green Curry with Rice, an aromatic chicken curry infused with authentic Thai spices served with fluffy, fragrant white rice.

“Food is a great unifying factor across the region,” said AirAsia Group CEO Tan Sri Tony Fernandes. “What we are doing is bringing the wonderful flavors of ASEAN into Santan to create a unique food experience, with the vision of replicating the on-ground gourmet experience onboard.” He intimated that “the flavor profile and pricing of inflight food has always been a challenge, but we believe that with Santan, we can create the first restaurant brand in the sky that is both tasty and affordable.”

In attendance at the food-tasting event were more than 200 members of the media and key influencers from 16 countries: Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Brunei, India, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and India. The attendees took part in the Santan food-tasting session and interactive activities, including a cooking demo of the Thai Green Curry with Rice meal by AirAsia Regional Manager of Group Inflight F&B Chef Calvin Soo. They also enjoyed a performance by AirAsia X cabin crew, Assraf Nasir, and more.

The award-winning Santan menu offers the most extensive variety of inflight meals for guests to choose from, both onboard and via online pre-booking. The menu includes hot meals, kids’ meals, savory snacks, healthier selections such as wraps and sandwiches, and desserts particularly suited to the preferences of guests travelling across AirAsia’s route network.

In order to better cater to passengers’ preferences, Fernandes says the airline relies on data “from more than 400 million guests carried over the years to create better, more innovative inflight offerings, including for Santan.” He reveals that soon they will be implementing an electronic point of sales system to make ordering and payment much easier and to allow them to better understand what the inflight guests want. “We are also exploring the use of green packaging and inflight coffee trolleys to enable us to serve freshly brewed premium coffee onboard, and we will continue working with local ASEAN enterprises and farmers in developing F&B products.”

Guests flying on AirAsia are encouraged to pre-book their meals, to enjoy greater savings with the Santan Combo Meals, and to choose from a wider variety of meals. Guests who pre-book are assured of meal availability and enjoy priority meal service onboard.

AirAsia’s Santan Food Festival was a great experience. The attendees had a really full day, literally.