Air India’s New Year Resolution: Only Vegetarian Food On Short Domestic Flights

Come the New Year, travellers flying domestic Air India flights will no longer be able to look forward to non-vegetarian meals in flight.

“It has been decided to provide only Indian vegetarian hot meals in economy class on domestic sector flights with duration between 61 and 90 minutes, from January 1, 2016,” a circular sent out to all cabin crew stated.

The Logic?

The thing is, airline food is not normally appetising in the first place. Taking out the option of eggs or chicken for die hard non-vegetarians will possibly leave them dissatisfied with their meal and, subsequently, Air India’s service. Why then is the airline adamant on this move?

Logistics. It takes cabin crew 30-40 minutes to serve passengers on a regular sized plane which, when it comes to hour long flights, leaves them very little wiggle room for preparing the trolley cart used to serve meals. Therefore, juggling a choice between non-vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals was too time consuming.

Additionally, for similar reasons, domestic flights that take between 60 and 90 minutes will not be serving tea or coffee during lunch and dinner flight categories.

The Reactions

As you can imagine, travellers and the aam admi are not too happy with Air India’s announcement. Check out the reactions on Twitter:

#AirIndia to serve only veg food on short flights. What an idiotic decision. #AI doesn't belong to any political party, it should know.

— Girish Kuber (@girishkuber) December 26, 2015

Why improve efficiency when we can reduce service levels instead! – Air India to serve only veg in short Dom flts! https://t.co/HP84FFia8w

— Karan Sehgal (@sehgalkaran) December 26, 2015

What’s your take? Does their logic make sense to you or are your horrified by the thought of having to survive on vegetarian food while flying?