Two recent stories about foreign objects in airline meals provide an important reminder: always examine your airline meal before eating it.
Maggots And Blades? Why You Should Always Double-Check Your Airline Meal Before Biting It
First up, a metal blade. On June 9, 2024, a business class passenger found a metal-like object in his chaat (a savory, crispy fried-dough wafer) while traveling on AI175 from Bengaluru (BLR) to San Francisco (SFO).
After a few spoons of the chaat, I felt something hard, something metallic, inside my mouth. I spat it out into the bowl. It was a blade!
Obviously, I complained to the stewardess who spoke for four-five seconds. The conversation went something like: Sorry about this and we will inform the catering team. She returned with a bowl of chickpea salad.
He posted about his flight on Twitter:
Air India food can cut like a knife. Hiding in its roasted sweet potato and fig chaat was a metal piece that looked like a blade. I got a feel of it only after chewing the grub for a few seconds. Thankfully, no harm was done. Of course, the blame squarely lies with Air India’s… pic.twitter.com/NNBN3ux28S
— Mathures Paul (@MathuresP) June 10, 2024
Air India responded a few days later, offering him a free one-way business class ticket on any flight:
“We value our relationship and would request you to accept our goodwill offer of a one-way business class ticket across any Al flight, redeemable within one year of issuance. We look forward to your response and would request you to look at this incident in isolation, giving us the opportunity to serve you to a better experience the next time you travel with us.”
With generous compensation like that, I’d imagine others will “find” blades in their meals…
To Air India’s credit, it even explained where the foreign object came from:
“Air India confirms that a foreign object was found in the meal of a guest aboard one of our flights. After investigation, it has been identified as coming from the vegetable processing machine used at the facilities of our catering partner. We have worked with our catering partner to strengthen measures to prevent any recurrence, including more frequent checking of the processor, especially after chopping of any hard vegetable.”
Next, a United passenger found maggot-like creature in his economy class pasta dish on a flight from Australia, posting the images on reddit:
The whole world of quality control and cleanliness in catering facilities or most restaurants is something that I choose not to think about, much like how a sausage is made. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
But the guy on Air India bit into a blade and he is fortunate he did not injure himself.
Bottom line: always examine your food before eating it, especially on an airplane.
Don’t forget about the rats below the floor panels that visit the galley while your meals are being plated.
I think Maggots and Blades are opening up for Guns N’ Roses on the next leg of their tour.
Gold as well. Was thinking the same. The best name for the Punk band I never started.
Maggots and Blades was only good with the original lineup.
Gold.
They should have broken up after Dexter Herpes OD’d.
What, a chickpea salad was not good enough as compensation?
I do recall eating glass in my pasta at a restaurant in Milan some years ago. As my mouth was bleeding the best they offered me was a new pasta. “These things happen, it’s Pasta!” No, I am not joking, true story.
Maggot Meal should be fed to state prisoners, not paying airline pax
Probably some low iq immigrants making the food. Probably use the same hand they prepare you food with to wipe their butts.
Don’t you dare blame people you know nothing about for problems they may have nothing to do with.
There are a lot of complications with EATING FOOD on a flight in an airplane at 37000 feet. But this one takes the cake! Just don’t eat.
Maggots are a good source of protein at the end of the day
Bon Appetit!