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Could we stomach paying for airline food?

Imagine the next time you book a flight, you're asked if you want to purchase a meal or a snack. If you decline, your fare is $20 to $50 cheaper.

According to some U.S. airline executives, this could be the future.

These executives said the policies -- while still very much in the conceptual stages -- would apply primarily to passengers in coach or those who purchased nonrefundable tickets. Sound familiar? (See second item.)

To be sure, those passengers in first or business class would continue to be served meals, the executives said. That's because first-class passengers either paid top dollar to sit in that section or they have so many frequent-flier miles that they're valued customers of the airline.

If a carrier made such a move, it would probably be to an à la carte system of food pricing, said B. Ben Baldanza, senior vice president of marketing and planning for US Airways. "I'll be surprised if we don't see some experimentation in that area," Baldanza said.

So does this mean US Airways is considering such a move?

Baldanza won't say.

At least one airline has already adopted an à la carte food policy: Air Canada's Tango, which was launched last November as a no-frills alternative for its price-conscious, mostly leisure travelers. Passengers pay 64 cents for soft drinks, coffee or tea. Crackers, cookies or fruit are about $2.60. And soup is about $1.30. The only free item is water.

Tango executives said most of the airline's flights are less than two hours long and about 60 percent of its passengers purchase an item during a trip. Tango, which serves 23 Canadian cities, is an all-coach carrier, like Southwest Airlines. Tango executives said the airline's costs are about 25 percent lower than Air Canada's and its fares are an average of $20 lower.

Ben Smith, Tango's managing director, said the à la carte service has been successful and could be adopted by U.S. airlines, as long as passengers knew upfront that they would have to pay for snacks and beverages when they booked their tickets. "Based on our experience, I don't know why anyone wouldn't do this," Smith said.

But Patricia Hill, an Alexandria software developer and frequent flier, said she was not willing to substitute cheaper fares for à la carte snack service. "I don't care how cheap an airline says a ticket is -- if I'm paying $700 to fly to Chicago, I should at least be able to get a blasted Coke," she said.

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