I was reading an article the other day on The Age website about the new cuisine to be served on Japan Airlines. I have flown with a few different airlines, such as Thai Airways, Malaysian Airlines and British Airways, and often on board these flights some of the meals served is from that country's local cuisine. So to hear the Japan airlines, which I assumed would serve something local like Sushi, is to start serving on the flights for Christmas Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), was quite a surprise. I would have thought that American Airlines would be the first airline to serve a fast food product on board their flights.
I read further into the article to discover why Japan Airlines would take such an interesting move with their choice of in-flight cuisine, and I discovered that there is actually an interesting explanation. Apparently in the 1970s, over Christmas, many expatriates in Japan would purchase KFC chicken for their Christmas dinner, as it was the closest thing they could find to a Christmas turkey in Japan. So sales of KFC would dramatically increase around December 25th each year. This lead to a tradition of having KFC for Christmas, which was picked up by the younger Japanese locals, making the tradition even more widespread in Japan, than just the expatriate community. It is in honour of this tradition that Japan Airlines has decided to serve KFC on their flights over the Christmas holiday period this year.
If you are interested in reading the original article, check out The Age website.
