• Home

Controversy over Air India's hot meal plans

Air India's move comes at a time when several airlines the world over are offering vegetarian meals regularly as part of their menu.

India's national airline Air India stirred up a controversy when it announced that it would be serving hot vegetarian meals on flights 61-90 minutes long on the domestic sector.
 
The move met with a lot of criticism on social media, with frequent flyers blaming the airline for appeasing "political masters".
 
"I Am veg. But #AirIndia decision to serve only veg food unfair, smacks of appeasing political masters," tweeted one Girish Kuber.
 
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah wrote on the micro-blogging website: "Pray tell why? I'm trying hard to understand the logic of this decision but I'm really struggling."
 
All this because it was perceived that non-vegetarian food has been taken off the menu.
 
An airline official even issued a statement, saying "in the time available for service (on short-duration flights), it is not possible for us to juggle passenger choices' of meals. As a non-vegetarian can have a vegetarian meal but not the other way round, the decision was logical".
 
It was only much later that an official clarification was released.
 
"It has been misinterpreted. The real truth is that in short halt flights where the time span is between 60-90 minutes, we used to serve sandwiches and snacks, which used to be vegetarian. Only thing was that there was a long demand that there should be some hot food as well," India's Minister of State for Culture and Tourism and Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma said.
 
The clarification was met with a tepid, tongue-in-cheek response on Twitter.
 
"Welcome move by Air India... Hot meals to replace the stale sandwiches...," tweeted Gautham Kamath.
 
Another user, go went by the name GGSVishnu, said the "airline needs controversies to keep up the ticket sales".
 
Air India's move comes at a time when several airlines the world over are offering vegetarian meals regularly as part of their menu.
 
Dubai-based Emirates, for example, has five "religious meals" on its menu: Asian Vegetarian Meal, Vegetarian Jain Meal, Hindu Meal, Muslim Meal, and Kosher Meal.
 
Next to each type of meal on the airline's website is the list of ingredients that are not used in preparing the dish, complying with religious requirements.
 
A Hindu meal, for example, does not contain beef, while a Jain meal does not contain any animal products, by-products, onions, mushroom, ginger, garlic, etc.
 
Recently, Buddhist meals have also been added to the menu.
 
Another airline with a diverse religious and vegetarian menu is Singapore Airlines. The airline serves Hindu Non-Vegetarian Meal, Kosher Meal, Kosher Vegetarian, and Muslim Meal.
 
The airline even has seven different types of pure vegetarian meals: Raw Vegetarian Meal, Vegetarian Indian Meal, Vegetarian Southern Indian Meal, Vegetarian Jain Meal, Vegetarian Oriental Meal, Vegetarian Vegan Meal, and Vegetarian Lacto-Ovo Meal.
 
Some other interesting menu choices are fruit platter meal (Air Canada and Air New Zealand), and Indian-style strongly spiced vegetarian meal (Finnair).