Robots and Conveyer Belts Are the Future of In-Flight Meals

"Something to drink?"

Any frequent flier recognizes this phrase as the words that waft from their airplane's aisle in a sing-songy voice from the mouth of a blonde with heavy eyeliner, interrupting their nap or viewing of an Adam Sandler comedy on a five-inch screen. Or maybe you're so hungry you could eat your arm and have to settle for dinging the "Call Attendant" light three or four times in order to get a bag of peanuts sent up, if your flight doesn't have a long enough duration to qualify for meal service.

Let's face it: unless you're in first class, eating on planes is a drag.

The cart meanders down the aisle at a crawl so slow that you worry that your 747 has entered a wormhole in the sky that has caused time to suspend completely; when it does arrive, they're out of the only palatable entrées and the only remaining option is Unspecified Baked Fish with Ridged Carrot Coins and Iceberg Lettuce Salad. And if you have to get to the bathroom while the cart is making its journey, forget about it. You'd better be able to hold your excreta for the next 25 minutes or find a way to absorb it back into your organs. Dark.

A German company has recognized our strife and the general absurdity that in 2015, we haven't found a better system for feeding 300 people in a cramped metal box in the sky than having people walk up and down the aisles asking every single individual what they want and then returning with a bulky, elbow-slamming cart to painstakingly pass each item out.

According to MoneytalksNews, Sell GMBH—an air-travel meal-service equipment company—has filed a patent for a system that best resembles the conveyer belts that whisk unagi rolls around many sushi restaurants, a system known as kaitenzushi. The patented system also takes cues from an Automat system, combining the convenience of a vending machine with the novel transportation of a pneumatic tube system.

Using conveyer belts and compartments under the floor, the "under-floor distribution system," as Skift.com calls it, would enable the flight crew to serve food and drinks to passengers while minimizing human labor and eliminating the maddening aisle-blocking caused by the current system.

Many airlines have already implemented systems that allow passengers to order meals, snacks, and drinks from their seats using touchscreens—but the food still has to be brought over by a flight attendant. Using "computer-aided logistics," Sell GMBH's mechanisms would eliminate the need for staff intervention … though you would still be dependant on our hopefully friendly neighbor in the aisle seat if you happen to end up hungry in the middle or the window. Unless, of course, airlines wanted to abandon their ongoing quest to reduce legroom as little as possible in favor of opening up and making room for a snack-dispensing virtual flight attendant.

Sell GMBH notes in the patent that their design was inspired by a 1965 creation of inventor Martin Limanoff, who envisioned the "Aircraft monorail Automat," a boxy robot that would deliver food to passengers by zipping up and down the aisle on a rail.

But food-administering robots or not, there's still no promise that the quality of the food we receive on planes has any sign of making drastic improvement. Plane food, it seems, will remain plane food—regardless of delivery method.