Can a cheeseburger on an airplane ever be as good as one on the ground? Or will it only ever be “pretty good, for something on an airplane”?
Even as inflight meals have largely vanished from domestic coach, they’ve remained fixtures up in first class (at least, on longer flights). While the menus have varied over the years, there are a few frequent standbys, including a surprising one: the humble hamburger.
While you might think a burger would get soggy or gross, it actually works fairly well on a plane, as long as you don’t expect to get it medium-rare.
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Most of the prep and cooking for inflight meals is done on the ground, while dishes are heated on the plane in specialized convection ovens before they’re served. It’s easy to heat a burger patty in those ovens, and even if they get a little more thoroughly cooked than one would prefer on the ground, a well-done burger works better than an overcooked steak.
That’s especially true for “smash burger”-style burgers like Shake Shack’s, in which the patty is pressed down on a very hot griddle, searing the outside and keeping the inside juicy while making the burger thinner and fully cooked through.
That’s probably what Delta Air Lines had in mind when it decided to offer Shake Shake’s famous burgers as a meal option on board. In what the airline dubbed a “first-of-its-kind” collaboration, the airline began offering Shake Shack-branded entrees in first class this month on flights over 900 miles departing from Boston Logan International Airport (BOS). It plans to expand the partnership to other airports throughout 2025.
As TPG’s resident “beef in the sky” beat reporter (seriously — it’s sort of my thing) who happens to be based in Boston, I was assigned to hop on a flight to see whether Delta and Shake Shack can actually pull this off, or whether the marketing push is all filler with no meat.
I booked a one-way ticket to Denver International Airport (DEN) via Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport (MSP), since I had to get to a United hub for a different assignment. I made sure that the flight was long enough to have the full meal service in first class — BOS-MSP comes in at 1,124 miles, according to Great Circle Mapper — late enough in the day that I could be sure that lunch would be offered, rather than breakfast.
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There’s one crucial detail to keep in mind if you’re hoping to get the Shake Shack burger on your next flight: It’s only available if you order it in advance. This was a detail that I’d seen in the press release but forgotten about. I was checking my reservation in the Delta app when I noticed the option to order my meal and decided to do that, but I didn’t get a notification or reminder that I could do that. It’s possible that if I hadn’t gone and selected a meal on my own, I would have gotten the notification later.
So: I had my flight, and I had my burger ordered. Would it be worth the trip? Here’s how it went.
Delta Shake Shack burger presentation and sides
In domestic first class, Delta offers a drink service shortly after takeoff, and flight attendants offer passengers a choice from the snack basket while the meals warm up.
First-class meals on Delta are served on a tray, with all of the courses at once. The burger is served on a ceramic plate on a branded Shake Shack paper liner.
You’ll find lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pickles on a smaller plate, along with a small plastic dish with the restaurant’s signature Shack Sauce. There are also packets of ketchup and mustard for anyone who prefers those.
Shake Shack’s fries are famously delicious, but you won’t find them next to your burger. Instead, the main meal is served with potato chips and a Caesar salad (with dressing on the side).
I’m actually OK with missing the fries — a burger is one thing, but it’s tough to make french fries edible at all on a plane, let alone as good as the ones straight from the fryer at the restaurant.
You’ll have to wait until you land to satisfy your milkshake cravings, too; instead, Delta serves a Shake Shack brownie for dessert.
The burger, meanwhile, is served with melted American cheese on a toasted potato bun, just like at the restaurant. When the flight attendant placed it on my tray table, it looked excellent (aside from a couple of stray drops of cheese), in some ways better than it would at the restaurant, since there, it’s wrapped in paper foil. I hadn’t smelled it from the galley while it was being heated up, but that unmistakable aroma was definitely there once it came out.
How was the Delta Shake Shack burger?
I don’t quite know how they did it, but somehow, Delta and Shake Shack nailed it.
The burger tasted pretty much exactly like it would on the ground, as if I’d gone to any of the chain’s locations in cities around the country — or in airports like MSP, DEN and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK).
The bun is lightly toasted on the inner sides while staying warm, light and fluffy on the outsides. The cheese is melted as if it were on a hot griddle (other than those little bits of excess that you can see in the photos), and the patty was steaming hot with the exact same taste and texture that you’d find on the ground. It’s almost spooky.
Keeping the toppings on the side serves a dual purpose: It keeps them from getting soggy, and it allows passengers to assemble their burger with what they want and omit what they don’t.
I piled all of the fixings — lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles — on my burger and used the knife from my cutlery to spread the Shack Sauce on the inside of the top bun. The vegetables were all fresh, crisp and flavorful, and the sauce was just like on the ground.
As for the patty itself, it tastes like a Shake Shack patty. The outside is seared, it’s cooked fully through in the smash burger style, and it’s juicy and tasty. You can’t really ask for more.
Everything else was tasty as well, even with the sandwich as the main star. The Miss Vickie’s chips are nice and salty, and everything in the salad tasted fresh and flavorful.
Finally, the brownie was delicious, even if it reminded me of — and made me crave — a decadent shake.
Bottom line
Somehow, Delta and Shake Shack managed to make an airplane burger that tastes exactly the same as a fresh-cooked one at one of the chain’s locations on the ground. It’s easily the best burger I’ve had on an airplane.
I remember when Shake Shack first started getting big in the 2000s. Even as it started to expand within and outside of New York City, it could be hard to get one of the burgers, thanks to long lines driven by a lot of (understandable) hype. Even when it opened locations in New York’s Grand Central Terminal, JFK and Citi Field, long waits were inevitable.
That makes it even more wild that now, you can have one of the famous burgers delivered right to your seat aboard your next flight.
Some may scoff at the idea of getting excited for a fast-casual dish in first class — what happened to the fine dining of yesteryear? — it’s worth noting that this is a fit for what first class is today. It’s less a chance to enjoy fine dining, and more an opportunity to be served any meal at all. So it might as well be an entree you’ll enjoy. And if you’re a fan of burgers or Shake Shack, it’s safe to say you’ll enjoy this one.
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