I suspect that once you arrive at destination you'll unfortunately quickly find out how "common" veganism is in Malaysia and Indonesia. Not to worry you, but one of my trips there was with an ex who was precisely vegan and all I can say is that apart from a few completely westernised places catering to tourists in major tourist hotspots, the food situation was a complete nightmare for her: dried anchovies, dried shrimps/seafood, fish sauce, eggs, or a combination thereof was virtually everywhere, in every dish or seasoning including every possible sambal in places serving local food. The worst part from her point of view was that people had absolutely no conception of what veganism (or even vegetarianism) really entailed. I think for many restaurants, the question was whether there was meat or fish as a main ingredient, but condiments and seasonings did not count. They also very obviously considered that just taking the meat or fish out of a dish in which it had cooked was what it took to make a dish vegetarian or vegan. I don't think they meant to deceive let alone any harm, but I think that the notion of excluding animal products from food as such was precisely so uncommon to them that they did not see what the problem even could be (my ex had an excellent palate and the taste of infused fish or seafood product was never going to escape her). Many a times she ended up only being able to eat slices of cucumber or fruit as even the peanuts had often clearly coexisted with seafood for significant periods of time!

Ultimately, airlines are not masochistic. They offer special meals because their customers want them and not offering them lose them those customers. If ksml or vgml diets were common amongst MH customers on those routes, you can be pretty sure they'd offer those options (as far as I know, vgnl are certainly offered long haul) in exactly the same way that if some of the many different Asian special meals were in demand with the customers of BA and other European airlines on their short haul flights, they would routinely offer them all rather than stick to boring standard AVML.

So MH does provide Vegan Meals? But it's just BA's IT that can't book it? This is a very different thing to moan about.

MH are very weird though. Flying them a year before Covid LHR-KUL we were told at check in that due to new caterers they couldn't cater my girlfriend's Gluten Free meal so gave all four of us £25 Pret A Manger vouchers. So armed with £100 we brought most of the shop (it's tough to spend on snacks!) and loads of people's coffees who were in the queue behind us, and took our posh sandwiches and ginger shots on board, only to be served 1 x decent dinner, 1 x gluten free dinner, & 2 child meals after all.

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Indeed. I'm not keen on green beans or boiled carrots. It's surprising how many airline meals come with one or t'other sometimes both.:eek:

Veganism is very much falling out of fashion so I’d imagine we’ll see fewer airlines offering it going forward.

Why is it reasonable? That info is specific to the airline who holds the data and is not shared with others - that responsibility lies with the passenger.

Wasn't there a period where almost every conceivable meal managed to have mushrooms in it? I'm sure it was a subject of discussion a few years back...

(Another one in the 'more meat please' camp...)

Looking at https://www.malaysiaairlines.com/nz/...l-request.html, it states in 1st bullet poibt

If MH says that it is not offered on that route, then that's life. As far as domestic routes go, it is irrelevant since this is not a domestic flight

I assume that the OP has already tried to select the special meal from the MH manage booking page or the customer contact centre before posting

Requirement or preference? I suspect it is the former. Regardless, if you have specific requirements, then it is up to you to book on an airline that meets those requirements as opposed to expecting the airline to change to meet yours. Perfectly reasonable to defend that a company isn't offering a service to you when it doesn't offer it to anyone

If there was a mistake and it is a route where it is offered, you should be able to select it from MH's manage booking; if not, cancel and rebook on another airline that meets your requirement or just accept it

This is true.

It's unclear whether OP actually called MH for clarification, before threatening to complain to BA. It sounds like they want BA to force load a special meal onto an MH flight, which is bizarre.

I just wanted my partner to have a hot meal like everyone else. The overreaction on this thread is just embarrassing.

No - assuming MH doesn't offer it, you wanted your partner to have a hot meal UNlike anyone else's

The overreaction would have been to be complaining to BA about MH's policies

No need to be embarrassed. :)

This thread is mainly about the availability (or lack thereof) of vegan special meals on MH and that topic is best discussed in the MH forum. The debate about veganism isn't for this forum either. With all that in mind plus the fact that we've had multiple reports about bad posts requiring moderator intervention we'll leave this thread closed.

golfmad
Moderator: BAEC Forum