Air India apologises after passenger finds cockroach in meal on flight

The airline said it was sorry for the ‘disappointing experience’

An Air India breakfast was harbouring a cockroach, claims a passenger (Amit Dave/Reuters)

Plenty has been written about bad inflight meals in the past, but Air India’s latest gastronomic fail might just take the biscuit. Or insect.

A passenger on a recent Mumbai-bound flight from Bhopal discovered a large cockroach in his breakfast.

Rohit Raj Singh Chauhan said he found the intruder in the sambhar, a lentil-based vegetable stew, during flight AI-634 on 2 February.

“I informed the Air India crew, but they ignored me,“ he told The Times of India. “Since the crew members were not listening, I returned it to them.

“I even objected to their serving food to others, but to no avail.”

Passenger Manoj Khandekar tweeted a picture of the offending dish with the caption: “Cockroach In Food Served At Air India #Bhopal #Mumbai flight”.

The cockroach was found in an Air India meal (Twitter/Manoj Khandekar ) (Twitter/Manoj Khandekar)

The images very clearly show a large cockroach, several centimetres in length, removed from the dish and covered in stew.

Despite the initial response from crew, the airline has since apologised for the incident, issuing a statement on social media.

“We sincerely apologise for the incident where our valued passenger had a disappointing experience with the meal served on board our Bhopal-Mumbai flight,” it said.

“Air India always endeavours to ensure our passengers enjoy our services. We have taken serious note of the incident and immediately issued a strong notice to the caterer concerned.

“Air India has a zero tolerance policy in this respect and have initiated corrective action internally.

“Our senior officials are in touch with the aggrieved passenger.”

The story follows an incident last month when an Emirates passenger shared pictures of his extremely disappointing chicken and cheese sandwich, which had barely any chicken in it.