Qantas Hates Vegetarians

I went to Canberra for work yesterday.

I had had suspicions, but now I am firmly of the opinion that Qantas hates vegetarians.

The carnivores among you might not be familiar with the usual vegetarian flight experience. It is true that we get our meals first, but often we are denied a similar amount of food to the amount you would receive. Similarly, they often forget to ask us if we would like a beverage, and then we usually get ignored if and when we have the opportunity to ask them for one while they take the meat meals around.

And the stewardesses on this flight did as they would usually do and brought the vegetarian meals out first. They did not deliver mine.

I thought it might be an accident, and that I would have the chance to rectify the situation later. So I waited. Just before she was about to dump a slab of chicken breast in front of me, I inquired “sorry, is there no vegetarian meal in my name?” “I don’t think so, Sir…” came her reply, “but I’ll go check.” She checked. There was none.

This in itself did not constitute cause for drama. People and computers make mistakes. Perhaps my name had been lost, or my meal sent on a flight to Cairns. The drama arose from the hostesses’ ‘innovative’ solution.

Twenty minutes after everybody had finished eating, one of Qantas’ lovely dragons (they all, it would seem, look like dragons these days – that is, wrinkled skin with far too much makeup) approached bearing two trays.

The first, I was informed, contained the standard meal everybody else on the plane had received with the tender chicken lovingly and equally tenderly “picked out.” The second were “salads that the business class passengers had left on their plates.”

That’s where they lost me.

I promptly snatched the bread roll off one tray, a miniature Toblerone off the other, and politely requested a white wine. She wandered off, positively baffled that I had declined her delectable offerings. I should have considered myself, I was informed, “the luckiest vegetarian on the plane” because I was “privileged” to be getting business class food.

Thankfully she didn’t seem as baffled by my request for wine.

Second-hand food: this is Qantas’ way of turning what I would gladly have dismissed as an accident had they promptly and simply apologised. But instead, they insult me by offering me either second-hand food or food covered by a sauce that was cooked with and probably still contained meat.

Epic Fail, Qantas.