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I was served a non-veg meal despite pre-booking of Asian Vegetarian meal which I ate too. The details are as under:
My husband and I were travelling from London to New Delhi. We took EY 12 from London to Abu Dhabi on 23 August 2009 and were seated on 28H & K. I am a strict vegetarian being a brahmin Hindu and accordingly requested a vegetarian meal. The airline recorded this as evidenced by a notation "AVML" on my boarding card. As the lunch was about to be served, Paul a cabin senior attendant came over and requested me to accept a change in the vegetarian meal from Asian to non-Asian. This was due to paucity of AVML on board. I accepted his request and asked him to ensure that the alternate meal was a strict vegetarian one which he assured me.
While eating, I put an item appearing to be “paneer” (cottage chees) in my mouth which turned out to be fish. I was aghast with this and had been thus subjected to a cruel joke with my religious beliefs, culture and eating habits. On being confronted with this, the cabin attendant Andrea apologised and so did Paul. The F&B Manager Kiran also came over to apologise. Ms Singey, Cabin Manager also came over to admit the mistake but the most unfortunate damage was done. I asked for a form for logging my complaint but Kiran and Singey assured that they have logged this in their record on board and I will hear from them soon. It has been nearly 5 months since and I have not heard anything from anyone at Etihad. Since then, I have been wondering whether this happened because I was nice and agreed to your crew’s request to give the AVML to another passenger, or because the airline was not carrying enough meals and if I should not help anyone in good faith in future. I dread to eat outside any where now. Not only my value system is affected, my religious belief was subjected to a cruel treatment by your staff. Worse, Etihad has completely forgotten about this as if they did no wrong. We are now planning to hand this matter to our attorneys for suing the airline but before we do that, I want to know what does the Etihad Airways have to say in this matter.
Dr Prabha Singhal
e-mail: suneal.[protected]@exlservice.com
I had the same experience on both my flights. The worst was that they told me that a Hindu mela had chicken in it! its like saying that a muslim meal has roast pig in it!
the people who eat non veg food must be feeling guilty themselves as they do not respect that we do not eat what they eat. According to me one should respect individual choice and faiths and religious beliefs as for they are not harmful.
Etihad hasn't got a proper customer service...i had issues with them too and they never ring back when they say they'll do so, moreover they are rude and absolutely don't care of the welfare of their customer...Though I subscribe the frequent flyer program I hate to say that I won't use it in the future...I'd rather pay the extra money and choose a company that really value its customer.
I'm sorry for what happened to you...being a vegetarian too this add to my certitude that I won't fly Etihad again.
so what is the big deal .. if a bit of fish went into the mouth .. i am sure there was no medical emergency .. how does it matter..