Try out non-veg, Air India tells vegetarian passengers

Beware of flying the national carrier Air India (AI) if you are a vegetarian. This being the Shravan period when many Indians refrain from non-vegetarian food, instead of stocking up enough vegetarian meals, the airline chose a tasteless approach when its airhostess recently asked two Mumbai-bound vegetarian flyers to ‘try out’ the non-veg fare since the veggie meals had run out, leaving the veg-since-birth passengers fuming.

On July 27, Prakash Padikkal, 52, a businessman, and his friend Ramesh Agarwal, 55, a social worker from Mumbai, were returning from Delhi by Air India’s flight IC 863.

“The flight took off around 5 pm and about 30 minutes later, the airhostess came to us enquiring about our meal of choice. We told her we would like vegetarian food,” said Padikkal.

After 10 minutes, the airhostess returned to ask passengers about their food preference. “When we repeated our choice, she said they were short of vegetarian food and whether we would like to try non-veg,” said Agarwal. “This was quite surprising and even infuriating to us as we are vegetarians since birth,” he fumed, adding, “We did not expect this from the national carrier as they well know what being vegetarian means to an Indian.”

Padikkal said that since he has been travelling by AI for the last 20 years, his travel agent always specifies his choice of meals.

However, the AI spokesperson said that there was no specific request by the passenger for vegetarian food at the time of booking. He also specified that the airline lifts on-board meals based on the number of passengers, along with some extra meals.