Vegan Catering

[World Traveller]

All - seeking some experiences or help, I'm not sure. A friend of mine is vegan - that is doesn't eat any animal based products. Earlier this year I booked a flight (BHX-BRU SN Brussels Airlines), and requested vegan catering. As it was the catering was bordering on non-existant, so it didn't really matter that SN translated 'vegan' into 'vegetarian'.

Anyway, I've just booked another flight BHX-AMS (KLM UK) thru Travelocity (because KLM uk's own website is rubbish). I emailed them to request vegan catering - and got a reply stating that this was a domestic flight and that the only catering would be "bagels and sweets and things" so no request was necessary. I emailed Travelocity back to point out that elative to BHX, AMS is not domestic, and that many sweets (due gelatine) and almost certainly bagels would not be vegan.

The friend in question is an infrequenmty flyer (the 2 flights described above are his first ever) and I don't think the industry is doing a great job of promoting itself.

I wouldn't mind if the airline would just admit it cannot handle the request. At least then I'd know where we stand.

WT

[Hand Solo]

Some airlines (mine included) only offer a limited meal service on short sectors and don't offer any special meals beyond religious or regular vegetarian requirements. If the flight is only an hour then I'm sure most pax could cope if there isn't a suitable meal on board. Special meals seem to be an awful lot of hassle when it comes to catering the aircraft and tend to cause delays because the caterers forget to bring it with the rest of the meals. I suspect that they are also more expensive and time consuming for the caterers to produce due to the lower volume of meals required. It may not sound very customer friendly, but if people choose to follow strange diets then thats their choice, they can't reasonably expect everyone to cater for their particular preference. After all, what proportion of restaurants offer vegan meals?

[World Traveller]

Hand Solo - pretty much my thoughts also. However, as I wrote, if they'd just admit that they can't/don't/won't meet the request I'd be happier! I agree catering on a 1 hour sector isn't really necessary.

WT

[Eboy]

I am not a strict vegan but try to eat that way most of the time. I am not that familiar with European air travel. I agree the airlines should be upfront about their capabilities.

In the U.S., on American Airlines, cross-country flights are long enough to have meal service with vegan meals available. (Shorter flights, just pretzels, which are vegan, at least the last time I checked the ingredients.) Instead of vegan, I take the Hindu meal option, which is also vegan but much more flavorful.

As a further aside, I have a friend who is an airline employee and describes himself as a vegan. Employees are not eligible to make special meal requests when exercising travel privileges. So, he takes the regular meal offering and eats the animal products if present. His reasoning is that the extra meals are going to get thrown out at the end of the flight, and it is more respectful of the animals to eat the animal products than have them thrown out.

[Departures Beckham]

I have found that on a number of airlines that the main dish of a vegetarian meal is the same as a vegan meal, it just seems to be the 'extras' (such as cheese and crackers) which are not vegan.

When travelling I will normally take the 'asian vegetarian' or hindu meal as they often do taste better. Another option is to ask for a fruit meal.

From my exerience as working at an airport and as a passenger, always book your meal directly with the airline. Don't trust your travel agent or website, they have sold the ticket, their job is done. Either phone or e-mail the airline.

[Tolsti]

There was, a while back, an article in a quality Saturday newspaper all about catering yourself for your flight. It even went so far as to suggest menus based on diet, servability (lots of finger foods) taste (apparently tastebuds finction less at altitude) and friendliness (to other passengers that is.......so no ripe camembert to go with the grapes).

Perhaps on short flights this may be the answer.