Vegetarian Food not served on Air France flight
 

Hi,

My name is Ganesh Ramamoorthy and I'm a FB Silver member (KL2028811841). I was coming to Mumbai from Paris on the 9th of December 2011 by AF 218 that I boarded from Paris.

I was not provided my vegetarian meal that I requested for. Instead, the response that I got from the airline crew was that the vegetarian food was over and all they can provide me french food or eat just bread.

When I asked why vegetarian food was not being provided despite placing the request for special meals, I was told they did not have any such request for a special meal.

Being a silver member, all travel preferences are already in their system including my food preference. Then why should I as a frequent flyer have to place a request for special meal every time I fly. Can they not just check their system and know what meal to provide me.

The callous attitude of the airline crew is even stark when one of crew member came forward and offered me to have just bread on a 10-hour long flight, while a couple of other tried pacifying me offering gift vouchers and other things as compensation.

If the airline cannot take care of their customer's food properly why have this whole thing about a frequent flyer. Is it only to hang a baggage tag with a silver member imprint?

I'm completely disappointed with the service met out to me and I have decided I will not fly an Air France flight ever in my life.

thanks,
Ganesh Ramamoorthy

AFAIK FB does not store meal/seating preferences. This is why there is an option to request those when making your booking online on the AF website. If you did not reserve the special meal at the time of booking or no later than 48 hours prior to the flight's departure time, there is nothing the crew can do as airlines do not load additional meals.
It is also worth noting that such "special requests" are always linked to a specific flight. Consequently, if that flight is changed for any reason whatsoever, the request will be deleted from the booking and need to be recorded again.
If you did follow the correct ordering procedure (i.e. not merely assume that the airline would remember the choice you made on a previous flight) and no change was made to your booking, you may consider contacting AF's customer care department. If there was an oversight on their part, you should get a few thousand miles in return.

I completely agree with you that a frequent flyer ought to be able to have their flight preferences recognised automatically, including the ordering of special meals. In an age of computerisation, this is not beyond the wit of man.

I am a platinum member of a hotel group, and they alway know my preferences regarding a non smoking room, bed type, etc. I don't have to request this every time.

Having said that... I am not sure you could say the crew were callous..

It sounds like they offered you what they could, given that no special meals was loaded, which is obviously beyond their control. They also offered you gift certificates. Given the limited options available to them, I think they did their best to show you their regret and help you. What else could they have done at that moment?

I agree there is nothing much the airline could do but to show or atleast pretend to show their regret through gift vouchers and through other possible means. But can they 'really' compensate for the hunger a passenger goes through in a 10-hour long non-stop flight. The question is not about getting compensated. It is about making sure that mistakes such as these never happen. As you rightly point out, in the age of computerization, how come airlines don't take that extra pain to make sure they know their frequent flyers well and cater to their preferences. Or does it hurt the airline to stock up extra plates of the food? The callous attitude of the airline that I talked about is not about what they offered - its about how it was offered - with no regret, telling me, as if, "this is what we have...eat it if you want it, or i can just go hungry - and we don't really care'

Has this changed?
I know other airlines offer a vegetarian option.
________________________________
Alexandra from Double Vegan