Catering to your aircraft in Bordeaux.
Bordeaux–Mérignac sits at 162 ft on a flat Atlantic plain, and the busiest weeks follow the wine calendar: Vinexpo years, harvest tastings, château dinners that start from your cabin. What goes into the drawer is sized to your aircraft's galley, and last-minute orders are handled.
We know the galley, the diet card and the 5 a.m. re-plate — because we lived them. So we built the caterer we always wished we could call.
Fourteen years on VIP and head-of-state cabins. Can plate for twelve in a G650 galley and still land it hot.
The one who reads every diet card twice. If it says no cross-contact, it means no cross-contact.
Answers at 5 a.m. when the leg moved overnight. Same-day swaps are her love language.
Nouvelle-Aquitaine is a long coast and a long table, and a private jet menu built here borrows from both. Bordeaux's local specialities are the obvious start: canelés, lamprey in red wine for the brave, entrecôte à la bordelaise with its shallot and marrow sauce, and the oysters of the Bassin d'Arcachon, which want ice and a separate lemon. Each one needs a decision about how it travels: oysters opened late and kept cold, the bordelaise sauce in its own pot so the beef does not stew, canelés packed so the crust stays firm.
An inflight menu for Bordeaux works best when it respects the weather of the day: oysters and cold shellfish in the colder months, melon from the Landes and tomatoes from the market in summer. Private jet food from this region leans on duck, foie gras, Bayonne ham and Basque cheese, and since Nouvelle-Aquitaine stretches to the Pyrenees, a menu can borrow from Béarn as easily as from the Médoc. We label every container with its seat and its service state, and we write what goes with it: knife, spoon, a lemon wedge for the oysters.
Tail, pax, diets, timing. One message — no portal, no quote form. Answered at any hour, by a flight attendant.
Leak-proof boxes, marked by guest and restriction, with reheating times written on the lid.
Two minutes out of the drawer. Whatever you ordered for the crew comes in the same delivery, and one clean invoice follows.
Harvest weekends at Bordeaux–Mérignac bring light jets and a few large cabins onto the same apron, and the galley question is different for each. Private jet catering here is a brief about what a Bordeaux table looks like at altitude: inflight catering that survives a short sector, aviation catering that respects French import rules, cabin crew meals boxed apart from the guest trays, and for official movements, diplomatic flight catering cleared before the kitchen starts. Business aviation catering and executive jet catering orders for LFBD arrive with a tail number and a seat plan.
Business jet catering and corporate jet catering at Bordeaux are shaped by the wine calendar: Vinexpo weeks, harvest tastings and château dinners bring VIP flight catering and charter flight catering orders with a clear wine pairing in mind. Luxury inflight catering here means a private jet chef who writes a bespoke menu around Médoc and Arcachon products, and who knows which dishes survive a short sector.
For state visit aircraft catering at LFBD, the order begins with protocol: who sits where, what each guest cannot eat, which dishes the delegation has approved. Government flight catering, head of state flight catering and VIP aviation catering all follow the same rule, a menu agreed in writing before any cooking, a traceable kitchen and a discreet handover.
Bordeaux's kitchen runs on butter, duck fat and red-wine reductions, so a diet card at LFBD starts with where those hide: the bordelaise sauce, the shallot jus, the confit. We prepare kosher, halal, vegan, gluten free and allergen free special meals on a separate board, in a separate box, marked to the seat plan; kids meals follow the same labelling.
A sheet per guest. Separate boards, separate boxes.
Sealed, certificate in the same box.
Their own menu, nothing to cut at altitude.
Vegan, low-carb, light — composed, never compromised.
On a Bordeaux turn the crew often eats between the fuel truck and the next sector, so crew meals here are boxed to go from a jumpseat. Flight crew meals and crew catering are ordered with the flight, on request and invoiced like the rest. Pilot meals can be two different dishes, different meals for pilots so captain and first officer never share a plate, and cockpit meals come in crew meal boxes that need no cutlery drama.
FBO catering at Bordeaux–Mérignac means catering delivery to the FBO on your slot, coordinated with the handling agent for access to the apron. The general aviation terminal at LFBD has its own rhythm, and ground handling catering follows it: handling agent catering is handed over at the aircraft, not at a gate.
A large-cabin visitor at Bordeaux–Mérignac needs galley catering that is loaded from a high loader, so the dishes must be packed in trolleys or cartons that match the aircraft's door height and the galley's drawer layout. Airside catering delivery is coordinated with the handling agent, and aircraft provisioning for a wide-body follows the same labelling as a light jet, only with more trays.
Mention it when you orderCertified, inspected, with cold-chain records filed against your trip.
Whichever terminal you park at, handover is at the aircraft, on your slot.
Allergen sheet per guest, halal and kosher on request, sealed and labelled.
Itemised and trip-report ready, sent after the leg.
Bordeaux–Mérignac is a regional airport at 162 ft that mixes scheduled traffic with a steady general aviation flow, and its airport catering for business jets goes through the general aviation apron. FBO services and ground handling services here are built around the wine trade and the Atlantic coast, which makes LFBD a business aviation hub for Nouvelle-Aquitaine and its châteaux.
Business aviation at LFBD splits between the wine trade and Atlantic leisure, and as a business aviation hub the field sees both. Inflight catering and in-flight catering follow that split, with aviation catering for the crews, executive jet catering for charter clients, business aviation catering for corporate programmes, diplomatic flight catering for official movements and cabin crew meals boxed apart from the guest trays. Crew meals ride with the order, and the FBO services on the apron decide how and where the handover happens.
Customs at Bordeaux–Mérignac follow French and EU rules: within the EU, personal food moves freely, but for flights to the UK or beyond, meat and dairy are controlled. Ground handling services keep the paperwork, and the FBO services desk sees the labels, so we mark every item by origin.
Average rating from the cabin crew and pilots we cater for.
“Working around a late menu amendment at Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport, I asked for prawn salad and small fruit plates in portions appropriate for our 9 passengers. Our request to The Galley Girls focused on the side dishes, with enough detail to distinguish passenger portions from additional provisions. It was useful to see the starters listed separately when checking how much space the complete order would require. The galley preparation stood out more than any sales pitch about flight catering.”
“We kept the passenger brief simple at LFBD: roasted chicken and seasonal vegetables for 3 guests, organised with different crew meal preferences in mind. The salads supplied by The Galley Girls were straightforward to check against the written menu before the cabin handover. The main courses were also listed clearly, which made it easier to pass instructions between crew members during preparation. With flight catering services, careful attention to portion planning matters as much to our crew as the menu itself.”
“My order at BOD covered a cheese board and savoury canapés for 2 guests, with a practical service plan needed because of two separate meal services. The Galley Girls kept the canapés separate from the finishing elements, which gave us control over the final presentation. My main takeaway from this airline catering order was the practical approach to cabin service sequence. We could finish the sauces as each guest was ready, rather than laying everything out at once.”
Two things move the price here: the product (oysters, duck, sole) and the number of sittings your crew duty needs. We quote after you give us both.
Bordeaux departure slots are often tight on harvest and Vinexpo days, and last-minute orders are handled. What makes an order easy is a clear departure slot and a clear idea of how long the turnaround will be, so we know when the galley can be loaded.
Arcachon oysters are the product most travellers ask about: they travel well but need to be declared as fresh shellfish at some destinations. We note it on the label.
Bringing food is possible, but many operators prefer ours because it comes with allergen labels and a temperature log, which customs and handling agents like to see.
The charter price does not include food. At Mérignac, where a light jet might land beside a large cabin, the galley size decides what we cook, so we ask the type first.
Tail, pax and diets — a flight attendant takes it from there, day or night.
