US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy craves better in-flight snacks and MAGA-friendly airlines
November 26, 2025
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has called on airlines to improve the nutritional quality of snacks served on flights, arguing that carriers should “do something better” for passengers as holiday travel peaks and frustration with air travel remains high.
His remarks on snacks came as a sudden aside during an interview with news site Blaze, in which Duffy aired concerns about passenger disruptive behaviour, TSA screening, airline policy, and how to make air travel “more American, more humane.”
Duffy has recently called for a return of ‘The Golden Age of Travel,’ encouraging passengers to show “more civility” when flying.
Duffy wants no more fat cookies on flights
During an 18-minute interview with Blaze News editor Christopher Bedford on Monday, Duffy covered a broad range of concerns about the deterioration of the airline passenger experience in the US, including TSA screening, smaller aircraft bathrooms, crowding, delays, and passengers feeling “like cargo.” He linked these conditions to disruptive passenger behaviour and, in the middle of his remarks, mused on better nibbles.
“By the way. I would love some better snacks,” Duffy said. “I would love a little healthier snack on the aeroplane. Maybe that could change it all if we didn’t get the really fat cookies like fattening cookies full of, just like, butter and sugar and crap. Or that little snack pack of pretzels that are really…Could we do something better? I think airlines should embrace a little MAGA as well. Could you get a healthy choice on the aeroplane? Um, that might go a long way, when they come and disrupt me while I’m working on the plane.”
Are US airlines’ snack standards too low?
Airlines in the US offer a variety of snacks depending on the flight duration. Complimentary snacks often include a salty and sweet option. Buy-on-board options sometimes offer healthier alternatives.
- American Airlines’ free snacks (on flights over 250 miles) consist of Biscoff cookies and pretzels. Healthier buy-on-board options include a fruit and cheese plate and “Tray Table Tapas,” which include olives, nuts and pita chips.
- Delta Air Lines offers varied free sweet and savoury snack options (Cheez-Its, Sun Chips and Biscoff cookies) on its flights over 251 miles, and its healthier buy-on-board options include a fruit and cheese plate and a “Market Snack Box” containing hummus, pita chips, olives and dried fruit.
- United Airlines offers free snacks on flights over 300 miles, with options including Chocolate Quinoa crisps, pretzel mix, and Daelmans Stroopwafel. Its healthier buy-on-board options include a Mega-Omega trail mix, and a “Tapas snack box” containing olives, pita chips, hummus, bruschetta dip, rosemary crackers, and almonds.
The Hunter’s Airline food study of 2019-2020, conducted by Dr Charles Platkin, editor of DietDetective.com and the Executive Director of the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Centre, rated the healthiness of in-flight food offerings on North American carriers, assigning each a score (with five being the highest possible).
The results were:
- Air Canada 4.0
- Alaska Airlines 4.0
- JetBlue 2.9
- Delta 2.9
- United Airlines 2.7
- American Airlines 2.7
- Frontier 2.0
- Allegiant Air 1.9
- Spirit Airlines 1.9
- Hawaiian Airlines 1.9
- Southwest Airlines 1.7
Dr Platkin ceased publishing the annual studies in 2019.
Science: Duffy ponders why ginger ale is better at altitude
Besides his remarks on snacks during the Blaze interview, Duffy also agreed with Bedford that airline ginger ale was of satisfactory quality. “Ginger ale does taste better on an aeroplane. Altitude, it must be. It’s got to be science. Yeah, well, the elevation and the ginger and the ale and the ice might come together,” he said.
In fact, multiple studies have found that various cabin conditions, including altitude, aircraft noise, and cabin humidity, can affect our taste buds, which also influences the snacks airlines offer.
In the Hunter’s 2019 report, Dr Platkin noted that, “It’s important to be aware that a lot of in-flight food options will be higher in sugar and sodium because of the taste impairments we experience while in the air.”
Duffy distrusts biometrics and wants people to feel “more American” at TSA queues
Perhaps of greater concern to the airline industry than his views on snacks, the Transportation Secretary also told Blaze News that he inherently distrusts government use of biometric data. The industry has been adopting biometric identity clearance to ease the long queues that Duffy also believes contribute to passenger disruptive behaviour.
“What we have to do with TSA to make people feel more American as they go through,” Duffy said. “By the way, and I got…I, like, don’t do the face scan. I don’t do the eye scan. I have real issues with the government gathering data on us, and I’m part of the government at a very high level, and I don’t like it. How do we make it more American, more humane and easier to get through TSA?”
In its most recent Global Passenger Survey, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) found that 50% of passengers now favour biometric processes. Additionally:
- 85% of passengers who used biometrics were happy with the experience.
- 74% are willing to share biometric data to skip passport or boarding pass checks.
The IATA study also found that 42% of those travellers who, like Duffy, are hesitant to use biometric checkpoints would reconsider if their data privacy were better guaranteed.
Political slogans on passenger clothing should be okay (at least for MAGA)
Duffy also spent time during the interview discussing what passengers choose to wear on board and suggested that passengers should not dress as if they were going to bed. However, he suggested that passengers should tolerate fellow travellers’ garments with potentially contentious political messaging.
“You know, even you see the videos of someone wearing a Make America Great Again hat, and they’re being confronted on an aeroplane,” Duffy said. “I’m like, I’m sorry. There are things that you can complain about as a passenger, and there are certain things you can’t complain about. And you know what someone’s political messaging is on their clothing. You know, that’s not it. That’s not in the realm of what you can complain about when you travel.”
It’s unclear whether Duffy really meant that passengers should tolerate any and all “political messaging” on clothing.
The terms and conditions of carriage on most US airlines give them the right to refuse service to anyone wearing clothing that other passengers might find offensive, whether because it fails to cover the body adequately or because its messaging might inflame tempers onboard. Duffy might want to chew over this a bit more, perhaps with some airline olives.
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Featured Image: Blaze Media on YouTube
