[dpark]

No one is complaining about not getting food on a 1-2 hour flight.

Many of us routinely take plane flights that are longer than two hours. A cross country flight is 5-6 hours plus 2 hours at the airport before and often a half hour after to get checked baggage. That's an 8-hour day.

Sitting on a cramped airplane for 5-6 hours is pretty unpleasant already. Doing it hungry doesn't improve the experience.

[WorldMaker]

With 5-6 hours of flight time I'm often lucky if it is only an 8-hour day. I almost never have access to a direct flight cross country, so tack on at least another hour plus taxiing, running to catch a connection, then waiting for the connection to depart. If you let airline algorithms/travel agents select cheapest available flights, the connection is quite possible entirely in the wrong direction, too, adding a bonus hour or two to flight times.

I've had companies crazy enough to ask if they could interview me on a cross-country flight day to save themselves a hotel night (after they were already planning to schedule the cheapest flights they could find), and I can only imagine those people have never traveled cross-country much.

[dpark]

True. I used to have to connect to fly to see my parents. Add two more hours for that.

I can't imagine interviewing the day of a cross-country flight. Even without connecting that would be miserable and probably pointless.