Air India Is Not Alone In Serving Veg Food To Flyers

Air India recently cut down on certain expenses to meet with its thousands of crores of debt. Among the many measures to cut back costs was removing the non-vegetarian meal option on all its domestic flights. Needless to say, the National Carrier received a lot of flak in India, but it probably didn’t feel too bad. As it turns out, it’s not alone in serving veg meals to passengers. Royal Dutch Airlines KLM too follows similar guidelines.

The Netherlands-based carrier serves veg meals to economy class passengers on its India-Amsterdam flights. And if it makes AI passengers feel any better, the flying time between Delhi and Amsterdam is eight hours as compared to Air India’s domestic flights, which can at most be three hours long.

“We were given the option of choosing either Italian veg or Indian veg. Even alcohol was not served and we were given only juice,” Nandini Guha, an associate professor in Delhi University’s department of English, told The Times of India.

Confirming its veg-only policy for budget flyers, a statement by KLM said: “On flights from Delhi to Amsterdam, as part of first service, we serve vegetarian meal in economy class.” KLM currently has a daily flight on Delhi-Amsterdam.

So you see kids, not only does KLM proudly (without any flak) serve vegetarian food to flyers on its India-Amsterdam circuit, the airline even considers it “part of its first service”.

Now can we cut Air India some slack (on this issue) and go back to wondering where that packet of narcotics on its food trolley came from?