Xlr

A first-person version of that sentence can be readily included in a complaint whether it's true or not

MysticSharma

The AVML meals are labeled and green cover foil packed. The problem is on some sectors vegetarian is a printed menu option so anyone can chose veg or chicken or one more meat option. People tend to go for vegetarian although they eat meat so the veg option runs out pretty quickly.
What EK should do is serve all special meals including AVML meals which have been pre-ordered first and then start their regular service as they do in all sectors.

I hope someone from EK reads this forum!!

MysticSharma

Thanks for the tip. I will try and see if I like the jain meal option.
I feel booking an asian vegetarian meal in advance for some sectors is useless specially if you decide to sit at the back or last 25% of the seats. On every occasion the veg meal was out by the time they reached row 46 and sometimes they were able to go and find one from a different galley but otherwise it was just dinner rolls and some fruit!! I have now learnt to go to airport early and load up on the lounge food!!

I am going to complain to EK and see what happens.

CommittedLurker

It's not just that the meals are bad or not available.

I personally know a friend whose preassigned bassinet seat was give to someone else at check in (a local UAE national in fact). She was left holding her infant on a full flight for 15.5 hours.

The fact is that EK is going from bad to worse on the US-DXB sectors. In both Y and J. Most of the time, the service issues in Y are not due to cost cutting, but just general apathy on the part of the cabin crew and management.

mrtdxb

This is why I buy a seat for my baby rather than try to save a few dollars and hope for a bassinet seat. OOOps - sorry for drifting way off topic ...

kaushik123

I see you have EK Gold. Just approach the lead FA upon boarding and have them "reserve" the veg meals for you. I have done this in all of my EK flights ex-SFO since I like having the option of seeing what the non-veg choices are before choosing. Being EK Gold, you should have no problems getting this done.

Alternatively, you can also request this when the purser has his/her usual "welcome onboard" chat with you

hvidya

Same thing happened to myself and my husband. We are strict vegetarians and had pre- ordered for Asian Veg meals on JFK- DXB sector. My husband is skywards gold member. In-spite of us pre-ordering meals, by the time FA got to us, she said they ran out of veg options.FA was extremely rude and unapologetic. We were hungry for most part of the flight.Special meals should be first served to those who have requested for it!It happens often on Emirates flights, especially bound towards the US.Best thing one can do is to select a seat towards the front of the aircraft!

Zol

Are you sure you had pre-ordered your vegetarian meal? All special meal requests are served first on EK and in my 20 years of flying them I have never seen that process not followed.

Descending

All DXB-USA/India flights have a third meal choice on the menu which is vegetarian. Due to the sheer number of AVML's ordered for these routes (which can number 200+ on a single A380 flight) they are not served in advance of the carts going into the cabin like other SPML's such as CHML, LCML etc.

Dubai76

As someone else mentioned earlier :

The only reason the AVML is a choice on the menu and not delivered as a special meal is not to delay service in respect to other PAYING customers waiting to be served. JFK LAX SFO YYZ half of the cabin , usually more then 100 has ordered AVML, and at least that is loaded, sometimes you even end up having a surplus of AVML because , the people who ordered it decided to go for a normal meal on that day.

Would you not be annoyed if you had to wait over an hour to get your food because crew are running around handing out over 100 AVML, and let's not factor in customers who change seats on board and don't bother advising crew until it's too late.

As someone mentioned a good option would be to order a VGML (Strict vegetarian) on these sectors. It's like when the lavatories are dirty and the crew get viciously blamed, when they just had cleaned them, are we suppose to post someone there,and look after all adults customers who don't clean after themselves ?

Peace out.

MucEKPer

On my LH MUC-JFK LH410 (A388) and LH411 (A343) flights in December the crew simply stored the special meals at the bottom of the normal trolley and during the food run they would check if the seat number they were currently at was on the list that they had lying on the trolley. Was very efficient and well-organsied (But let's not start comparing LH and EK's food )

Descending

That sounds great in theory, but on EK flights to the US its not uncommon to have FOUR meal carts full of SPML alone. I've seen 60+ CHML alone on a 380 to JFK, then there is HNML, VJML, VGML and AVML to consider. By the time the carts with the menu choices roll out to the cabin its almost like trying to fill in the gaps of where people did not order SPML. To try and speed up the meal delivery AVML was added as a third choice and the loading ratio varies day-to-day depending on how many AVML requests are generated through the booking system and then surplus to meet demand. You'd be surprised how many people with special requirements do not make the neccesary requests in advance.

TRAVELSIG

Welcome to Flytertalk!


The best rule of thumb is that on any airline in any class of service- if at all possible eat prior to boarding. Food at 37000 feet is never going to be as good as what you can get on the ground.

This being said- it is very disappointing to have nothing to eat on a long flight (although I like to count it as part of a diet ).