They weren’t exactly breaking the mold of serving bad vegan food in-flight.
A furious vegan has ripped Virgin Atlantic after being served a “pitiful” sandwich with “moldy” vegetables — which he claims was the “worst meal” he’s ever eaten.
“It’s certainly the worst offering I have ever had,” the UK’s Paul Booker, 55, told Kennedy News of the abysmal bite.
The traveler, from Somerset, had reportedly been flying from Cancun, Mexico, to London’s Heathrow Airport on Jan. 14 following a 10-day vacation with a buddy.
Toward the end of the nearly 10-hour ocean hop, the hungry passenger was served breakfast, whereupon the Brit opted for the vegan option.
What he got, however, made his stomach turn.
Booker, who said he has been a vegan for 10 years, was reportedly served “thin strips” of courgette and a “rotten”-looking bell pepper slapped between two slices of bread.
“The first thought was how little there was in there; it wasn’t until then [that] we looked at it closer, and we saw the state of the vegetables that were in there, and [I felt] just disgust, absolute disgust,” said the appalled passenger.
“I have had bad food on a flight before, but this was a joke,” he added. “It is certainly up there as the worst meal I have ever had.”
Booker said he showed the sad sandwich to a friend, who laughed in shock.
Revolted, Booker shared a pic of his dismal dish to social media with the caption, “This was the pitiful vegan offering that I got,” with the globetrotter noting that his plane ticket cost over $800.
Needless to say, the flyer refused to eat the revolting hero, declaring, “There was no way that was going anywhere near my mouth.”
Booker even showed the sandwich to the flight attendant, who was visibly embarrassed and quickly swapped it out for a cup of fruit salad. “She looked at it and said, ‘That’s terrible, that’s not acceptable at all,’ and to contact Virgin when I got home,” he recalled.
Booker obliged and filed a complaint with the airline, whose reps addressed the incident in a statement.
“We never want to disappoint our customers, which is why it’s disheartening to hear that Mr Booker was unhappy with the meal served on his flight from Cancun to London Heathrow,” said a spokesperson. “All customers, including those with specific dietary requirements, should receive food that meets our usual high standards.”
As compensation, he said they offered Booker a $136 (£100) voucher — a gesture he found unsatisfactory.
“£100 isn’t going to go anywhere on a Virgin holiday or flight,” complained the disillusioned customer. “I just wanted some acknowledgement from their in-flight catering team, and something properly financial would be nice. Something to make me feel a bit more valued.”
He found the boucher especially insulting, given that, he declared, they could’ve given him “£500 and it wouldn’t be a drop in the ocean to them.”
Booker saw his meal from hell as yet another example of airlines shortchanging passengers with dietary restrictions.
“The problem is that when you are on a flight, they only take a limited amount of food with them, and then they will only take a limited amount of specialist meals with them,” he claimed. “If that meal isn’t quality checked before they send it out onto the plane, and you are 10,000 feet in the air, then you haven’t got any other choice.”
Last month, an Irish airplane passenger swore off flying Aer Lingus after being served a pathetic vegetarian sandwich, which was almost devoid of filling and scarcely bigger than his thumb.
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