Can someone please tell me what is wrong with these pictures of my gluten-free meal from British Airways on my flight to the UK last week?
In case you didn't realize, not only do I have a regular, gluten-filled bun but I also have a cheesecake that clearly states "CONTAINS WHEAT". I was told on the flight that they didn't get the proper gluten-free trays and that this should be ok. The flight attendant then proceeded to tell me that she was gluten-free too (probably as a weight loss regimine) and this meal should be fine. I may have exaggerated a little bit and told her I could die if I ate this, but I was livid that I had no dinner for a trans-Atlantic flight except a plain salad and a small fruit bowl. At close to $1,000 a ticket, I deserve better treatment than that! There was chicken in some kind of gravy on the plate too but given the other food clearly containing gluten, I opted not to eat it. I trusted my gut (har har) and didn't eat anything on the tray. Luckily my mom had made me two gluten-free sandwiches to eat on the plane in case of circumstances like this so I didn't go completely hungry. I just worry about other gluten-free travelers who aren't as savvy as I am when it comes to not trusting the airlines, especially when they are trapped and hungry! Also, I am glad I was awake enough and paying attention to what was put in front of me. It would have been a horrible 6+ hours across the Atlantic with many trips to the airplane bathroom if I didn't read the ingredients. That is no way to start a vacation!
Flying home wasn't as bad, except they didn't serve me until they were feeding everyone else dessert and that was only after I asked two flight attendants where my special meal was and them looking at me with blank stares. They also ran out of food for many of the people on my plane and started bringing them meals from first class. How does an airline not know how many people they need to feed?
And the biggest kicker, British Airlines didn't send my bag or my mom's bag home with us. Two people, two bags, three different flights. How does this even make sense?
Needless to say, I WILL NEVER FLY BRITISH AIRWAYS EVER AGAIN.
Labels: British Airways, food, gluten-free, travel
5 Comments:
Hi Erin, sounds horrible from start to finish. If you haven't already you should really tweet British Airways with a tweet that tells of your abominable treatment. They tend to react quite quickly to negative tweets as these can get retweeted ad infinitum and really give them mega bad press! Just a thought! Hope you get some form of compensation, at least in regards to your missing luggage. Good luck!
Try flying anywhere on any airline gluten-free vegetarian!! You can get gluten-free, you can get vegetarian but never the twain shall meet!!
It's tough to fly! I went to Peru this summer, which was a total of 23 hours of travel with various flights and layovers. The flight to Lima was excellent - they had a gluten free meal with individually wrapped Udi's rolls. On the way back, they served a very similar meal to the one you just described. I asked the flight attendant if there were any gluten free options, and she brought me three oranges. It was awful. If I'd been allowed to board with food, I would have brought my own from the airport.
Air Transat were appalling. On a flight from Glasgow to Toronto breakfast consisted of half a rice cake, a small tub of jam, sunflower spread and 75mls of orange juice. Dinner was something that had been annihilated in their microwave but seemed to consist of 3 carrot batons, 1 sugar snap pea, some green beans, green pesto, and what I think was an inedible mix of quinoa, golden linseed, bulgar wheat or some such. Whatever it tasted foul. There was a small tub of fruit - 2 bits of melon a piece of pineapple, slice of apple and orange, 1 grape. It also contained the other half of the rice cake with more spread and jam! (I hate rice cakes) It was a hedged bets meal to cover all allergies so was basically GF vegan. The return journey was worse. Annoyingly my husband's meals included cheese and yogurt which would have been very nice in my own meal. I stole his yogurt on the way back as there was that rice cake again! Another kindly passenger gave me their yogurt too. I really think airlines need to get their act together. If not they have to allow passengers to take on their own GF food. Fortunately I had snuck on a banana and roll and a piece of cheese on the return trip, and was not challenged to relinquish it.
Air Transat were appalling. On a flight from Glasgow to Toronto breakfast consisted of half a rice cake, a small tub of jam, sunflower spread and 75mls of orange juice. Dinner was something that had been annihilated in their microwave but seemed to consist of 3 carrot batons, 1 sugar snap pea, some green beans, green pesto, and what I think was an inedible mix of quinoa, golden linseed, bulgar wheat or some such. Whatever it tasted foul. There was a small tub of fruit - 2 bits of melon a piece of pineapple, slice of apple and orange, 1 grape. It also contained the other half of the rice cake with more spread and jam! (I hate rice cakes) It was a hedged bets meal to cover all allergies so was basically GF vegan. The return journey was worse. Annoyingly my husband's meals included cheese and yogurt which would have been very nice in my own meal. I stole his yogurt on the way back as there was that rice cake again! Another kindly passenger gave me their yogurt too. I really think airlines need to get their act together. If not they have to allow passengers to take on their own GF food. Fortunately I had snuck on a banana and roll and a piece of cheese on the return trip, and was not challenged to relinquish it.
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