Did you know that, according to The Washington Post, and in a prime example of history repeating itself, airline passengers before 1936 had to pay for a boxed lunch? The meal on a July 20, 1939, flight started with a tropical-fruit cocktail, followed by cream of tomato soup, a half-broiled chicken with wine sauce, wax beans and Delmonico potatoes. For dessert, passengers had Boston cream pie and Blue Mountain coffee.
Around 1940 or so, soft drinks began appearing on flights. Coca-Cola was the first brand brought aboard. It was a significant and strategic marketing move for the airline (it was TWA), because they wanted to associate their brand with the positive, refreshing image that Coca-Cola represented during that time.
1940s era Coca-Col airline cooler. PC: eBay
Changing gears for a moment, let’s talk about the summer heat.
I’ll tell ya…those people who say that climate change doesn’t exist or is a hoax? They’ve got to be crazy. I mean, all you have to do is look at average temperatures of a place over the long-term, and you can see how much hotter it’s gotten.
Phoenix & Las Vegas
Take Phoenix, for example. As you can see from these charts, back in the 1950s, the 30-year mean temperature in the summer was 88.9°F. By 2020 it was 93.7°F.
And if you look at the highs in Phoenix in June 2025 alone, you’re seeing almost daily highs of between 100° and 111°.
Las Vegas? Same thing. This week alone, the predicted highs for 6 out of the next 7 days are over 100°.
Historically? Same thing as Phoenix – it’s significantly warmer in Las Vegas than it was decades ago…and is still getting warmer.
Of course, regardless of what you believe or not, bottom line is for the past few years, it’s been more hot in those locations than ever.
But back to soda…
When you leave soda cans in the heat, do you know what happens?
They explode.
From Chefs Resource:
Soda, or any carbonated drink, contains dissolved carbon dioxide gas. When the drink bottle is sealed and pressurized, the gas remains dissolved and does not escape. However, when the temperature rises, the solubility of gases decreases, causing the carbon dioxide to progressively separate from the liquid. This leads to an increase in pressure inside the bottle, potentially resulting in an explosion.
Soda cans generally explode when the temperatures are between 120°F and 140°F (the exact temp depends on the type of container and how much carbonation is involved). And, of course, when the outside temperature is 105°, the temperatures in a sealed building, room or storage container without air conditioning becomes really hot, really fast (if the outside temperature is 90°, the inside of a car, building, etc. can reach around 109° after 10 minutes. And if if it’s 105° outside, like in Phoenix and Las Vegas, after an hour, that enclosed space can hover around 150°).
You know where I’m going with this, right?
Southwest Airlines discovered this the hard way – they realized their soda cans that were going to be loaded onto planes, particularly in Phoenix and Las Vegas, were exploding. And some exploded once they were ON the plane. In fact, last year, about 20 Southwest employees were injured by exploding soda cans. One of them even needed stitches.
So this year, the airline smartened up. They just spend a cool (you see what I did there?) several million dollars buying refrigerated storage containers for their soda cans in the 2 cities, to alleviate the problem. Here’s more info:
I like how the refrigerated spaces not only allow the soda cans to stay cold enough to not burn, but it gives front line tarmac workers, who’ve been out in the heat, a place to cool off between planes.
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