飛 機 餐

I will break your question down into 2 section to answer...
Regarding to drinks, this is related to the amount of storage and the taste of passenger... As things like Diet Coke, Coke, 7-Up/Sprite are the kind of soft-drinks which everybody will not dislike... Cream Soda surely is nice as I like them as well, but the proportion of passenger like Cream Soda is far less than Diet Coke... And same reason apply 蔘蜜露...
For 益力多, surely it would be even more liked by passenger compare to soft-drinks like Coke, Diet Coke if the option is there... But 益力多 are usually sold in small container, which means that to cope with 1 passenger need, they may have to give them a whole pack (5 or 6 益力多) to actually make the size of the drink similar to Coke when the crew pull out the drink for you...

Because of that, to reduce confusion, airlines would limit the option of drinks for passenger... As if they provide more options, it would means that the airlines will have to load more drinks onboard... But the storage onboard is limited and also with more drinks, that would means heavy aircraft as well... Another option would be the reduce the amount of other drinks loaded to get some other type onboard, but that would means the chance of 1 specific drinks running out is higher...
So although airlines cannot provide every single type of drinks for you because of the limitation that they have in storage on each jet... They would tend to give you a varity of different drinks to choose from... And another problem is, if airlines provide Cream Sode as well alongside the other drinks, some people would then ask why not that and why not those... Then the drink list will just get longer and longer... And airlines just cannot cope...
For the meal issue... As airlines meals are made to cope with the horrible condition... They are required to be cooked at a normal cooking procedure... But after being cooked, they will then get the food located into cart after which the whole cart will go into freezer and to be stored... During the process, the temperature will drop rapidly... So at least, food are require to be able to cope with these issue to be cooled down rapidly then reheat rapidly as they get airbourn... At the same time, those food will also require to be able to stand the dry presurised cabin... So to cope with those issue above, airlines will also need to look carefully when they need to make a new meun... Also, as passenger taste will get weaker in the cabin condition, so airlines would tend to put as much favour on meals to make it taste the same or similar while the meal are served...
Because of the above issue... Airlines will need to look at each food carefully and the reason why chicken and beef are less used are because of that it get dry very quickly and go hard as well... And to cope with the dry condition, meals are usually made with huge amount of liquid of source so food will not get too dry as they reheat them and also good for the dry condition in the cabin... Also, when there are more liquid inside meal, it would also reduce the chance of meal being overheated... So for porridge, if they are made with more liquid and most meals would be made with more liquid or oily to prevent it from getting too dry when they are overheated...
However, it is not hard to find chicken/beef/pork like food onboard... But mainly on flights from US/Europe as catering compary take less care on the taste of food... But in Asia, airlines concentrate more on these, so you will see less chicken/beef/pork onboard but you may still seem them from time to time...
Hopefully these explaination will help you to understand more about the problem that airlines may have and why some of the point you raised are simply not possible to be improved...

其實香港Base 航空公司飛機餐已經好好。國泰Economy class 都有Movenprick 雪糕食，仲想點呀?試下美國...以前都係得一個Muffin 加兩塊水果。近年慳埋，什麼都沒有，要你自己係機場買上機；有個份就係賣個盒比你，入面兩塊餅乾一包提子一塊芝士，都要收五蚊。

飛機上飲食首要係安全，任何食物可能會令人嘔吐或增加食物中毒都不可以；可以想象飛機上幾十人一齊去厠所，真係要Declare emergency 緊急降落。(例如益力多，有機會令人嘔，一定唔可以)。機上食物一係可以冷藏凍食，一係煮到全熟。

同埋都唔係剩係得雞、牛、豬、意粉、芝士cake、杰撻撻的粥，記得Cathay 曾經仲有食過龍蝦、煙三文魚同埋羊排，不過係Business class 。如果First class ，可能仲有庸記燒鵝．．．

航機餐點服務的質素和品種，會隨著不同的航空公司﹑不同的客艙等級﹑不同的飲食文化和技術上的限制而不同。由於大多數乘客對雞牛豬，和飯﹑意粉﹑麵包這類日常食品接受，所以為迎合大部份乘客的需要而安排，而且這樣安排會由於食料是大量購入，和大量製作，而節目成本開支。
不同的航空公司：不同的航空公司，基本都會為沉悶的飛機餐花一點心思，來捕捉飛機搭客的心態——期望有一頓精緻而美味的飛機餐，儘管他們基本上要將要求降低一點才行！日本航空公司，由於是日本的航空公司，會提供富日本特色的食品如拉麵烏冬。而一些廉價航空公司，會以飲食另費的原則向搭客提供飛機餐。
不同的客艙等級：以經濟客艙為例，由於佔一班航機的大多數乘客，而且他們付出的機票費用是最小的，在節省成本方面，航空公司通常會為經濟客位乘客提供幾個普通餐款。但如果乘坐商務或頭等客位的，因他們付出了最多，相對地可以選擇的飛機餐食品也多款式了。但其實航空公司要為商務頭等客付出的成本會較高些。
不同的飲食文化：例如中東為主的航空公司，由於乘客多數以信奉回教的人為主，所以在純綷往返中東城市的航班上，沒有豬肉類的飛機餐供應。當然，每間航空公司均會以客為先，例如食素或其他有飲食上的需要的飛機搭客，可以先向航空公司提出飲食要求，航空公司便可以為該搭客提供合適的飛機餐。
技術上的限制：大多數飛機餐需要在機場的航膳基地處理好，然後用冷藏方法運上機艙內。但由於飛機的負重問題，飛機餐的份量通常都不會遠超出的乘客和機艙人員的人數，或許會有少量剩餘儲備，同樣地，食材的種類亦不會太多。根據任職空中小姐的人士說，由於這個技術性問題，如果乘客需要更多飛機餐時，而機內儲備又耗盡，空中小姐或需要基於乘客需要，將自己的那一份讓給乘客，變成空姐全程餓著肚皮了。

任何飛機餐的費用是一定已經資付費用之後才可享用的！

那就是你在購買機票時，

航空公司已將用餐的費用計算在機票內而已，

所以形成好像是不用付費的安排一樣！

別給誤導啊！



當然；說若你在用餐後依然未覺得足夠，

你亦可請空中服務生多給你一份，

倘若當時飛機上的用餐是有多餘的話，

那麼你便可多享一份而不必再多付費了。



其實航空公司會將足夠數量的用餐預先安排好送到飛成機上，

所以供後備的用餐亦不會太多。

成客先要求便可先得的！

另外；若機上的乘客不要用餐的話，這樣亦會有用餐餘下，

這就是可以享用多一份飛機餐的機會了，

否則；一般來說都不可以多給你一份的。



註：

因應每間航空公司的工序行政安排有所不同而有所不同。