Southwest Airlines In-Flight Menu: A Guide to Dining Options and Services

As one of America’s most prominent airlines serving over 100 million passengers annually, Southwest aims to make travel easy and affordable.

But they still seek to satisfy hungry travelers through an array of snacking options. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll break down Southwest’s food and beverage services across all available offerings to shed light on their inflight dining program.

Southwest’s Snack and Drink Philosophy

Unlike full-service airlines, Southwest focuses on providing smaller snacks and beverages rather than formal meal services. Reasons for this strategy include:

• Southwest mainly operates shorter-duration flights under 3 hours unsuitable for plated meals.
• Quick turnarounds require easy-to-clear, grab-and-go type dining.
• Snacks speed servicing time over meal carts in a single-passenger aisle configuration.
• Snacking sustains energy levels without interfering with work, reading, or sleep.

Southwest’s dining aims to balance convenience, variety, and satisfaction through cabin snacks and beverages.

Southwest Sponsored Snack Options

Southwest proudly serves a rotating selection of sponsored snacking options on all flights over 250 miles within the U.S. Their current lineup encompasses:

Canyon Ranch Snacks

This healthier line includes items like:

• Roasted salted almonds
• Roasted spicy chickpeas
• Cranberry oat granola bites
• Berry antioxidant mix trail bag

OREO Cookies

The classic snack comes packed in short 2-packs or shareable 5-packs.

Ritz Snack Mix

Cracker chips, cheese crisps, and mini breadsticks make a savory medley.

Harvest Snaps Snack Crisps

These light, poppable crisps come in flavors like lightly salted and chili lime.

Frito-Lay Rold Gold Pretzels

Classic salty pretzel twists, sticks, and baked varieties offer variety.

Barnum Animal Crackers

Fun, nostalgic packs of animal-shaped crackers for kids and kids-at-heart.

Pringles Potato Crisps

Pringles variety pack tubes provide single-serve portions of crisps.

San Jose Cakes & Cookies

Sweet snacks like chocolate chip cookies brighten trips.

Additional Snacks for Purchase

Beyond complimentary snacks, Southwest sells some premium brand snacks onboard including:

• Stacy’s Pita Chips – Variety of bold flavored pita chips.
• Beech-Nut Fruit & Veggie Blends – Squeezable healthy fruit and veggie puree snacks.
• Beef Jerky – Jack Link’s brand jerky in flavors like original and teriyaki.
• NatureBox Nut Blends – Trail mixes with nuts, seeds, and dried fruit.
• PopCorners – Light popped corn chips in flavors like kettle and french onion.
• SeapointFarms Snack Packs – Hummus with pretzels or edamame packs.
• Smartfood Popcorn – Individual bags of Smartfood white cheddar popcorn.

Southwest Special Snack Partners

To showcase local flavors, Southwest spotlights special regionally-inspired snacks on certain routes:

• Hawaii – Hawaiian Host chocolate macadamia nuts, Maui onion potato chips.
• Florida – Golden Flake potato chips, Good Fillings snack bites.
• Dallas – H-E-B chips, Hill Country Fare trail mixes.

These partnerships allow Southwest to celebrate regional tastes from its major hubs.

Southwest In-Flight Beverage Selection

Southwest serves a full selection of non-alcoholic beverages on all flights complimentary:

• Soft drinks – Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, 7UP, Dr Pepper, Sprite.
• Fruit juices – Cranberry, apple, and orange juice.
• Coffee – Freshly brewed regular and decaffeinated coffee. Tea options too.
• Water – Ice cold Dasani bottled water.
• Specialty drinks – Options like Ghirardelli hot chocolate (available seasonally).

Alcohol like beer, wine and spirits can be purchased individually where offered based on route.

Enhanced Snack and Drink Service

Southwest provides an upgraded dining experience in their Business Select section which guarantees extras:

• Premium dedicated beverage bar for Business Select passengers only providing snacks and drinks.
• Free alcoholic beverage coupons – 2 on shorter flights, 3 on longer routes.
• Complimentary premium snack item options like truffle chips, deli snack pack, nut medley.
• First access off the plane to purchase fresh food in airports on arrival.

This enhanced service rewards Business Select flyers with more generous and exclusive dining and beverage selections.

Southwest Heart Healthy Snack Box

This specialized snack box contains a selection of healthy items including:

• Fresh whole fruit like apples or oranges.
• Carrots with ranch dip.
• Nature Valley granola bar.
• Sabra Roasted Red Pepper hummus with pretzels.
• Emerald nuts pack.

The Heart Healthy Snack Box provides nutrition-conscious flyers a balanced variety of tasty yet wholesome nibbles. It can be pre-ordered online for a nominal $5 fee.

Kids Snack Pack

To appeal to younger travelers, this snack pack includes kid-favorites like:

• Teddy grahams.
• Slotz popcorn.
• Jelly Belly jelly beans.
• Goldfish crackers.
• Yoohoo chocolate drink.

At just $3 purchased in-flight, the Kids Snack Pack ensures children have fun snacking options too.

Refreshing Fruit and Cheese Plates

Southwest sells premium grazing boards in the sky with fresh, healthy snacks:

Fruit and cheese plates contain:

• Cubed melons, pineapple, grapes, strawberries, and kiwi.
• Chevre cheese, aged cheddar, havarti.
• Artisanal crackers like crispy lavash, frico crisps, multi-grain crisps.

The plates make a light, energizing meal for $8. Or enjoy as a palette-cleansing dessert.

Southwest Partners with Nuts.com

To bring more variety, Southwest now partners with leading online snack purveyor Nuts.com to offer:

• Over 50 premium nut, dried fruit, and snack mixes onboard.
• Sweet and salty blends, decadent chocolate-covered treats.
• Popular Nuts.com brands like Nuts to You, Candy Machine, and Krave Jerky.

Whether craving grab-and-go energy or an indulgent snack, Nuts.com’s offerings satisfy.

Southwest Airlines Beverage Purchases

For a full experience, adult passengers can augment Southwest’s complimentary soda and juices with alcoholic beverage purchases:

Beer Selections

• Blue Moon
• Goose 312
• Lagunitas IPA
• Miller Lite
• Modelo
• New Belgium Fat Tire
• Stella Artois

Wine Selections

• Woodbridge Chardonnay
• Woodbridge Merlot
• Woodbridge White Zinfandel

Liquor Selections

• New Amsterdam Vodka
• New Amsterdam Gin
• Cruzan Aged Light Rum
• Cruzan 9 Spiced Rum
• Jack Daniel’s Whiskey
• Jim Beam Bourbon
• Canadian Club Whisky
• Dewar’s Scotch
• Woodford Reserve Bourbon

Unique On the Rocks Cocktails

Southwest sells creative bottled cocktails to sip inflight:

• Tito’s On The Rocks – Vodka
• Bacardi On The Rocks – Rum
• Jack Daniel’s On The Rocks – Whiskey
• Jim Beam On The Rocks – Bourbon

These refreshing chilled cocktails need no mixers – just pour over included rocks glasses filled with ice.

Bring Your Own Food Onboard

Southwest allows passengers to bring their own food and non-alcoholic drinks onboard flights including:

• Freshly made meals and food prepared at home.
• Salads, sandwiches, wraps, entrees – almost anything goes.
• Snacks like protein bars, dried fruit, trail mix.
• Non-messy finger foods that won’t generate odor issues.

This allows customers to save money, cater to special diets, and enjoy preferred foods in flight.

Southwest Special Dietary Meal Requests

Despite not serving full-plated meals, Southwest still accommodates special dietary needs with advance arrangements:

• Gluten-free meals.
• Kosher meals.
• Halal meals.
• Hindu vegetarian meals.
• Diabetic meals.
• Child and infant meals.

Requests must be made at least 24 hours before travel through Southwest’s website or reservations line indicating specific airport and flight times. The airline then provides appropriate replacement meals and snacks.

The Southwest Snacking Experience

While rivaling airlines may boast celebrity chefs and fancy first-class dining, Southwest keeps satisfying flyers through its core strengths – value, quality, and convenience. Abundant snacking options perfectly suit Southwest’s efficient point-to-point travel model.

So next time you fly Southwest, expect great flexibility through fresh and tasty snacking selections focused on portability, variety, and regional flavors. Southwest dining provides the quick energy needed to power busy travelers from takeoff to touchdown.