Unwanted issue being created over vegan meals: Air India CMD

Reacting to reports that Air India is now shifting to vegan-only meals on short flights, its chairman Ashwani Lohani said he failed to understand what the issue was as the flight service is only replacing cold vegetable snacks with hot vegetable meals.

"Non-veg was not being given earlier, only veg snacks were being given. We have replaced that with hot vegetarian meals, which I think is a major improvement, for which our catering team deserves appreciation. Non-veg meals are being served in more than 90 minutes flights. I really failed to understand what is the issue...it is not clear," Lohani told ANI.

He further said the replacement was done due to the request of the people.

"If you are going in the morning, you will get hot vegetarian breakfast, if you are going in the afternoon, you will get hot vegetarian lunch. This is only for flights which are less than 90 minutes. We did this on the demand of the public," he added.

Earlier, the national carrier decided to serve only vegetarian hot meals on its domestic flights in economy class with a flying time of 60 to 90 minutes from January 1.

A circular said, "It has been decided to provide all Indian vegetarian hot meals in economy class on all domestic sector flights between 61 and 90 minutes duration from January 1, 2016."

Tea and coffee too will be off lunch- and dinner-time flights.