Japan Airlines and MOS create special inflight burger

Japan Airlines is making the most of its connections with Japanese fast food joint Mos Burger, with a new signature sandwich served on long-haul flights from Tokyo's Narita Airport.

The fantastically named "Air Mos Teriyaki Egg Burger" is at the other end of the scale from the elaborate set Japanese meals business and first class passengers enjoy in the pointy end of the plane.

Economy and premium economy passengers will find the burger as the second "snack" meal on flights from Tokyo to New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, London, Paris and Frankfurt.

The burger will be "served with warm bread, hamburger patty wrapped in special paper, fresh, locally produced lettuce, and finely-cut hard-boiled egg mixed with mayonnaise that can be used as a spread or savored on its own", says JAL.

And if that wasn't enough, it's served in a snazzy cartoon bag.

It isn't the first fast food economy passengers on Japan Airlines will have experienced as their second, snack-type meal.

Only a few months ago JAL tried out "Air KFC" from the iconic chicken outlet, to a reception that was half "excellent, food I recognise" and half "awful, that'll stink up the whole plane". The airline has also dabbled with bef bowls from Japanese chain Yoshinoya Holdings.

Overall, we'd prefer to pass on the Mos Burger — give us a choice of onigiri filled rice triangles, or even one of the white-bread sandwiches Australian palates find intriguingly unusual in Japanese konbini convenience stores instead.

Hungry for something a little more business class than a Mos burger? Check out more inflight food coverage from AusBT:

• Read up on Cathay Pacific's new Signature Chinese dishes
• Four course meals on three hour flights: the best "medium-haul" food in the sky
• Etihad's eight-course, ten-wine tasting menu from Sydney to Abu Dhabi
• Bringing an airline's home cuisine specialties onto worldwide flights with Asiana, Lufthansa and LAN
• Qantas' Rockpool consultant Terry Higgins shows how menus get from a chef's brain to your tray table 
• Cutlery, crockery, salt and pepper shakers...the story behind everything else on your business class meal tray

John Walton

Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.