Air India’s hygiene reputation took another blow this week as reports emerged of a nightmare journey for one passenger and her child, who found a cockroach in their food.
Suyesha Savant and her two-year-old flew with Air India from Delhi to New York on 17 September but having found a cockroach in their omelette, they subsequently both suffered food poisoning, Savant’s posts on social media revealed.
“I felt sick to my pit”
Content posted on Instagram and X includes clips of an in-flight meal containing the purported insect. What made things worse, is that Savant and her daughter had already consumed some of the meal before making the grim discovery.
“I found a cockroach in the omelette. I had already finished more than 2/3rd of the meal portion, and what was unimaginably worse was that I was feeding my 2 year old toddler the same omelette,” Savant described on Instagram, adding: “I felt sick to my pit. Not surprisingly, both of us suffered from food poisoning right at the start of our trip.”
The woman, who is a journalist in India, also noted general dirtiness and litter on the 14-hour flight. “Even the pouches of this seat were not clean and it had waste bottles lying in it, and when I alerted the staff about it, they said it was a mistake,” the passenger said. “But how many mistakes?” she questioned.
Found a cockroach in the omelette served to me on the @airindia flight from Delhi to New York. My 2 year old finished more than half of it with me when we found this. Suffered from food poisoning as a result. @DGCAIndia @RamMNK pic.twitter.com/1Eyc3wt3Xw
— Suyesha Savant (@suyeshasavant) September 28, 2024
Air India respone
In response to Savant’s posts, Air India expressed concern and pointed fingers at its catering subcontractors.
“Air India works with reputed caterers who supply to leading airlines globally and have stringent SOPs (standard operating procedures) and multiple checks to ensure quality of meals served to our guests,” an Air India spokesperson said. “We are concerned about the experience of the customer in the said instance and have taken it up with our catering service provider to investigate it further. We will take necessary actions to prevent any recurrence of such instances in future.”
Unacceptable?
But this is not the first instance of hygiene and poor standards of service on Air India. As well as recent incidents including a blade found in food aboard Air India, Travel Tomorrow recently reported the case of a passenger in first-class forced to “rawdog” the “worst flight I’ve ever been on” due to the Air India aircraft’s dirty and faulty equipment.
Air India’s executives meanwhile have announced an overhaul of their legacy fleet, including new fabrics and furnishings in a bid to bring the beleaguered airline’s accommodation and reputation back up to what management has called an “acceptable” level.
