Bird flu: Airlines scrap chicken from menu

Some turn vegetarian; some turn to mutton, fish

BY A CORRESPONDENT
February 22, 2006

Airlines across India have taken chicken off their menus with bird flu landing in the country. Jet Airways, which was the first to take the precautionary measures with its catering services, was followed by Air Sahara and Indian. While some airlines are not serving any meat, others are serving alternatives like mutton, prawn, and fish, and only on demand.

Saroj Datta, executive director, Jet Airways, said "We will be serving only vegetable meals for all courses for a few days. Chicken is an important part of our menu but keeping passenger safety in mind, we have stopped all such meals from last night."

Air India director (PR) Jitender Bhargava was quoted in Hindustan Times as saying: "We are taking abundant caution. The changes have been carried out as per the directives of national health authorities and alternative non-vegetarian options have been made to meet passenger preferences."

According to DNA, officials of Singapore Airlines have also said that they "asked for lamb instead of chicken and more vegetarian food for our flights from India." The recommendation was made by the International Air Transport Association, as a precaution under the public health emergency plan.

All in-flight food and catering services in at the Mumbai Airport have taken chicken off their menus. TajSATS, the biggest in-flight caterer with over 30 airlines as clients, said, "With avian influenza news confirmed, we have stopped loading continental chicken dishes on aircraft we are serving from Sunday morning. To meet the diverse menus of different airlines, we have swapped these with mutton and fish items." Catering services like Oberoi Inflight and Ambassador Sky Chef have also stopped serving chicken.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) have also stopped serving non-veg food on four trains (Mumbai-Ahmedabad Shatabdi Express, Mumbai-Delhi Rajdhani Express, Mumbai-Delhi August Kranti Rajdhani Express and Ahmedabad-Delhi Rajdhani Express) since Sunday. Rajdhanis and Shatabdis have suspended chicken servings.