In fact, Air Canada has offered consumers the option of prepaying for a meal voucher online since 2008, and its call center agents have been offering meal vouchers as part of a la carte flight options for the past year.

Canada’s dominant network carrier believes it is the only airline in North America to offer an online pre-payment option for meals.

Passengers can purchase Onboard Cafe, at a 20% discount, up to an hour before their scheduled flight as long as they haven’t already checked in.

Once the meal is purchased online, a voucher code appears on travelers’ boarding passes.

Internationally, AirAsia also gives travelers the option of prepurchasing meals online for 20% off.

AirAsia, incidentally, also offers travelers Live Chat from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

Starting May 1, Air Canada — with the exception of its contracted airline-partner Jazz — will feature credit-card-only cabins, and Onboard Cafe will be available on most flights within Canada, on Canada-U.S. flights, and on trips to sun destinations.

Air Canada has used credit-card readers on all flights where Onboard Cafe was an option since July 2008, and for the May 1 launch of cashless cabins, the airline is doubling the number of handheld credit-card readers available to crews.

The availability of the online meal-prepay option for Air Canada flights punctuates the way in which many airlines are offering ancillary services on their websites — and these services are unavailable to travel agents in global distribution system channels.

Air Canada was an early mover in implementing fare families — including Tango, Tango Plus, Latitude, Executive Class Lowest and Executive Class Executive fares — and it continues to be a leader with features like its online meal-prepayment option.