well, at least they are taking it "seriously"... give me a break

I swear to god, as if it wasn't bad enough how poorly the airline industry treated it's customers before 9/11.

Now they can use TSA and the FBI to intimidate customers and push their sky waitress ego trips.

This is why it pisses me off so hard that our tax dollars keep being used to save their horrible buisness model when they claim they can't turn a profit.

Thank you for pointing out that they are the "taking it seriously". I want to see the public relations lexicon thinned out so much that companies actually have to step up to the plate and say something worthwhile.

I. Will. Never. Fly. Period.

... but they are taking it seriously... seriously!

@PSN: kingpsyz: We're the reason they can't turn a profit (and why I can't enjoy a good flight any more). Everyone has to compete over penny price differences because all of the ex Greyhound riders realize they can use their cheapness to drive down prices to the point where airline service is where it is today. If we'd all grow up and just pay $5 to $10 extra per seat without crying over it, things would be a lot better. Until then, I try to fly as many foreign airlines as I can.

No, I don't work in the airlines, but I travel a lot, and it used to be a pleasant experience.

No proof here but why do I have a feeling the passengers made a huge scene when the promised meal was not served? Lets get real here: Flight attendants do not typically threaten arrest, threaten to have flight diverted, or deny bread and fruit unless someone really pissed them off. I'm not in the business of sticking up for airlines but I've seen some passengers verbally abusing flight attendants due to something totally out of their control. Someone on the ground likely dropped the ball but all the anger was taken out on the flight attendants. The proper way to deal with this would be to try to deal with the situation as best as possible while in flight and take action with airline representatives once on ground. I have a feeling they would have at least been given bread and fruit if they acted reasonably. Just because a company doens't follow through on a promise doesn't give one the right to disrupt a flight. Not saying it's right to starve passengers, but there has to be more going on in this story that what's here.

air travel is serious business

@newspapersaredead: Just because the story isn't described as you wish doesn't mean "there has to be more going on in this story that what's here."

@balthisar:
Not really, the reason they can't sustain their business is horrible customer service which leads to people shopping price because they know regardless of carrier they'll probablly be miserable.

Also it has to do with greed, I can't see multinational companies staying afloat if they needed government handouts to keep the lights on.

Maybe if your management didn't make 14950934835 times what front lines made there'd be enough money for gas and peanuts without getting subsidies...

Hell let CostCo open an airline and watch them move to the front of the class. They know well treated, happy employees lead to awesome customer service and repeat business.

Consumerist, why do you post stories that are poorly substantiated and inflammatory without the full facts? The description here is vague and is probably not the full story -- definitely we only have one side of it. It is also a poorly researched news story to begin with, having quite a bit of ambiguity.

I don't want add to unfounded speculation, only to summarize what seems obvious -- these passengers didn't get their special meal on the flight. They were quite unhappy about not receiving food, but after this, who knows what happened? It sounds like they must have raised such a scene that the flight attendants resorted to threatening diversion or arrest (which is not appropriate if true, but we are not told the full circumstances). The reasons behind each side are the important thing, but we don't have any of those facts here.

For example, this is very odd, and sounds like the complainants are badly rephrasing something that was said: "...Attendants then told the Patels that 'they could not have any meals or food of any nature whatsoever other than what had been offered throughout the entire flight.' "

You're saying that the crew were preventing the Patels from eating any food, even other food they found or were given somehow? Or, does this mean they were offered food? That contradicts the statement that the crew were instructed not to give any food. Is it more reasonable to infer that what was actually said was something along the lines of, "there isn't any other food on this plane to serve you besides what we have here"?

There is clearly some misunderstanding going on here, and we aren't getting the full story. This would be a more compelling consumer issue if we had the facts and this airline were clearly being jerks. As it is, I have to wonder what the passengers did too.

"Group" sounds like more than the two people suing. Was this a case of having 10 meals and needing 12, or ??? Couldn't other members of the "group" (who did get hindu meals?) "share the wealth" so the lady could take her pills? Not suggesting that what the airlines did was in any way right, but no one in the group surrendered a meal so Mrs. can take her pills?

The head attendant, according to the suit, told the other attendants the Patels were not to receive any food or alternates for the remainder of the 12-hour flight

That's just wrong. Especially when there were alternatives aboard.

Hey! You are supposed to get what you paid for! If you dont get it... that's a breach of contract. Throw in a vindictive flight attendant making sure you are punished for daring to ask for what you paid for, along with threats of arrest & a winess to boot!..... well.... what ya got there are well-laid grounds for a kickass lawsuit!

Sue away! I sure as hell would!

btw.... some of these airline stewardesses are becoming what cops are today. Powertrippers with little patience & a hairtrigger attitude. I am suprised they dont get tasers to use on "unruly" passengers who dare to ask for the meal they have been promised.

other things that stand out in the story:

"...In her letter to the airline... Feld said an attendant called 'one of the Indian travelers 'obnoxious' and insisted that he stop talking about the incident." "

I would be curious to know in what way the passenger was being obnoxious.

"...The tickets came with an airline pledge to furnish the Patels and other members of their group with Hindu meals..."

No airline ticket comes with a "pledge" to serve *any* food.

You're not going to get the full story when one side, the airline won't comment. As long as they won't talk you have to run with the information you have.

I really don't like how a vegan or a hindu feels they can sue when given the wrong meal. No one would consider it an injustice if a person who eats meat got a vegan meal. The fact is the airline screwed up the meal and they didn't get a special meal. They had the option to eat it or not. But the airline still served them food. And I really don't see too much of a problem with the attendants making threats if these passengers were causing problems. If you have dietary requirements that you personally can't deviate from, bring your own food.

@insomniac8400: "Bring your own food."

That is IF it makes it past the TSA. "you got a bomb in that pie maam?"

Who blogged this nonsense. They weren't denied food. They were denied special treatment.

@MyCokesBiggerThanYours: Did you even RTFA?

@insomniac8400:
@MyCokesBiggerThanYours:

While I don't disagree that we are missing the corroboration of independent witnesses, the complaint is far more significant than "we didn't get the special food we were promised." The complaint is "we were denied food of any sort when we asked for our promised special food, which resulted in potential medical complications for one person, and we were threatened and harassed."

Whether or not their complaints are corroborated remains to be seen, but if this is what happened then they deserve compensation.

No airline will ever take us seriously until we band together and DEMAND a passenger bill of rights that the airline lobbyists cannot defeat. This is beyond ridiculous and like a previous post, I am sick of the airline employees thinking they can threaten to have us arrested or denied boarding for their ineptitude.

@insomniac8400: although i agree that suing seems to be a bit extreme, the difference here is that for *some orthodox* Hindus it is against their religious beliefs to eat meat. Now, religious restrictions don't really give you much leeway, and definitely do not fall under 'personal dietary requirements'. The airline should have provided the meal, especially if the request was made on the reservation.

I hope they didn't fly from Shanghai to Chicago on that 757.

The fact that an ostensibly uninvolved third party passenger felt it necessary to write a letter to the airline speaks volumes about which side to believe. I've fortunately never run into a flight attendant on a power trip abusing their new found powers, but I've certainly heard from what I consider reliable sources about them. I think it's bad enough that most of the flight attendants I've traveled with lately hate their jobs and let it show in their work. I can't blame them for hating their jobs considering the product the airlines are giving them to "sell".

I will state my bias and say that I find it hard to believe that the air crew actively prevented the passengers from receiving any food whatsoever (i.e. the lead flight attendant saying "these people" are not to receive food of any kind). But it's possible, I guess, and that would be worthy of a story, but what did the passengers do to inflame the situation? Flight attendants don't become vindictive because you ask them for a special meal. You don't get reprimanded for asking for a special meal. Something must have been misinterpreted and overblown as a result, by both sides. I would really like to know what happened.

And if there is some fault on the passengers' side, and they misinterpreted the situation, then the headline "passengers denied/deprived food" is quite an exaggeration and Consumerist is not being reasonable here in posting a story that is so unclear. "Deprived/Denied food" means they had food and it was taken away from them. The passengers were probably, actually, *offered* food, but it was not suitable given their dietary requirements.

With the stories I hear about in-flight treatment lately, I have to wonder if some flight attendants have begun to lose their sanity.

@balthisar: Only $5 or $10? Well, considering the $50 fuel 'surcharge' that is now in effect, we should be seeing some seriously nice accommodations soon then, eh?

@goodkitty:

@balthisar: Only $5 or $10? Well, considering the $50 fuel 'surcharge' that is now in effect, we should be seeing some seriously nice accommodations soon then, eh?

--

The $50 benefit is that you won't fall out of the sky when the plane runs out of fuel... that is a benefit!

Homeland Security, through the Patriot Act, has basically given airlines flight crews carte blanch power to treat customers like shit. This transfers any responsibility for their negative behavior back to Homeland Security who will always play the "national security risk" card to dodge the issue. It now appears that many flight attendants have taken that new found feeling of power to unnecessary levels of abuse. It's not like there hasn't been reports of such abuse on an almost weekly basis over the last 18 months.
These incidents aren't going to become any less frequent until this level of power is trimmed or until some flight attendant's abuse of power provokes the wrong passengers into a rage that may actually bring a plane down in response.

@PSN: kingpsyz:

Serious business taken seriously.

@Kepler11, if an airline ticket does not come with a pledge to serve a certain type of food, then why do they ask you online when you're paying if you require a special meal? If a meal comes with the flight and they offer vegan meals, and you pick and pay for the vegan meal, you are then entitled said vegan meal. It's in black and white; right on the ticket that a meal is included. They were entitled to their vegan meal. If they paid for it, why should they have to bring their own food?? It's not like they didn't let the airline know in advance!

No actually you should be able to tell them to return the plane to the airport if your reason is that you feel the aircraft is unsafe to fly. I know after 9/11 a pilot told me that if you thought the aircraft wasn't safe, heard a noise, they had to check it out, and if you didn't approve the had to let you get off "AKA back to the airport"

I know it worked when I did hear a noise, as I was returned much to the annoyance of all the other passengers (2 others got off, when I did)

However I've never tried it on a plane waiting for clearance for 3 hours. I know they are holding you hostage, but IF I ever am forced to wait on the tarmack for a hour locked inside a plane, I'm going to call 911 and tell them I need to get off, and being held hostage... I don't care, you can't imprison me against my will, and I'll spend everyday till I die fighting it in court.

@insomniac8400: uh... they didn't sue because they didn't get the food they wanted. They're suing because the attendant apparently went apeshit on them when they complained. RTFA.

That said, having flown with Hindu meal requests myself, I know that you ALWAYS call 48 hours before, and confirm the food. Then call AGAIN 24 hours before, and confirm again. If the airline doesn't hear the customer drilling them about the food over and over, they forget all about it, 'cause they're morons. It doesn't at all justify how they were treated, but they should exercise diligence about this stuff.

Especially when, as Hindus, eating the flesh of animals would be a moral abomination on par with cannibalism.

That's it. I'm taking my Mileage Plus card and using it with ANA instead (thank $deity for Star Alliance). This is just too much. I've been on this Shanghai-Chicago flight a few times and have never had a totally pleasant experience. I'm going through Tokyo next time.

@balthisar: "Everyone has to compete over penny price differences because all of the ex Greyhound riders realize they can use their cheapness to drive down prices to the point where airline service is where it is today."

No kidding. In 1994, I paid $350.00 for a cross-country round trip fare, coach class. Today, with jet fuel almost 3x as expensive, I can expect to pay...about $450.00.

I think flying should be affordable - but in this case, affordable would mean that people are willing to pay $600.00 for that same round-trip ticket to get the clean airplanes, meal service, and an airline staff that are not experiencing their fourth pay cut in three years.

Tensions on jets these days aren't just high because of security fears, but because most of the majors are forcing their employees to provide more 'service' to customers who never learned common courtesy, who don't listen to anything the flight attendants tell them (for the fifteenth time, please switch off your phone, and buckle your belt, you twit!), and simply because stuffing 100+ people into the beat-up and dirty fleets that United and US Airways call jets makes everyone cranky.

I flew on an 18-month old Canadair RJ-900 yesterday. It was filthy. Crumbs, crud, dirt, maintenance handprints all over the walls, physically improbable seat pitch...the list goes on...do you really expect an industry that can't bother to bust out the 409 and a vacuum for a jet that's been sitting idle for eight hours to get a meal order straight? At the end of the same flight, we spent an extra ten minutes waiting at the gate because the gate agents hadn't shown up yet - they are stretched too thin because management pared them back for labor costs.

I'd gladly pay more and fly more often if I could get early-90s class service on airlines. But until the massively obese party-of-nine-with-two-screaming-babies-coming-back-from-Vegas-in-their-pajamas demographic feels like doing so, then I'll punish the airlines by withholding my business travel dollars and firing up the teleconference setup.

What all this has to do with the missing Indian food should be obvious: the airlines aren't paid enough to care anymore, the employees are bitter and cynical over draconian management, and we all suffer indirectly from the downward price pressure.

@kepler11: Consumerist, why do you post stories that are poorly substantiated and inflammatory without the full facts?

I don't know. I sent them a well-sourced and substantiated story about GEICO refusing to pay a valid claim after stalling me and the other party for four months.

Not sexy enough, I guess.

@CurbRunner: It now appears that many flight attendants have taken that new found feeling of power to unnecessary levels of abuse.

I can honestly say that in the past five years, despite logging tens of thousands of miles domestically, I have never seen a member of the crew, from the purser to the junior FA, treat any passenger unfairly.

However, I have experienced dozens of instances of snotty, ignorant, unsafe, and rude behavior from passengers. (For exmaple, the cast-iron b*tch on yesterday's US Airways flight 2730 from San Jose...in the second starboard exit row...yeah - you were mean to that flight attendant, and we both heard you call her a fatass under your breath.)

Please try to keep in mind that there are always two sides to a story, that flight attendants cannot always drop everything they're doing to personally serve your needs at once, and that maintenance of a safe cabin environment is paramount, and above all else the cabin crew's biggest responsibility.

Lastly, I'd submit that if there is any abuse of power by cabin crew out there, it probably arises from the resentment that these people feel about having had to take some pretty huge pay cuts over the past few years while goverment bailouts and declining service have meant massive bonuses for the white guys in the executive suite.

@insomniac8400: I really don't like how a vegan or a hindu feels they can sue when given the wrong meal.

Yeah, and the nerve of those Jews, getting all pissed off when you serve them pizza in their oatmeal!

(rolls eyes)

@insomniac8400: And what about folks with food allergies? Should we deny them 'special treatment' as well?
Asking to get what was promised to you is not seeking 'special treatment' kids.

@rkm12:

I really don't like how a vegan or a hindu feels they can sue when given the wrong meal. No one would consider it an injustice if a person who eats meat got a vegan meal. The fact is the airline screwed up the meal and they didn't get a special meal. They had the option to eat it or not. But the airline still served them food.

People who eat meat generally also eat vegetables, and there is nothing in a vegan meal that could not be in an omnivore's meal. No religion that I know of pronounces that you must eat meat but not vegetables.
That said, several religions do have dietary restrictions. I doubt you would even dare to make such a comparison if we were talking about a Kosher meal.

And I really don't see too much of a problem with the attendants making threats if these passengers were causing problems.

...but were they causing problems, or is the stewardess powertripping?

If you have dietary requirements that you personally can't deviate from, bring your own food.

That works just fine if (and only if) you can get it past the security checkpoints. Good luck there.

I find this outrageous on the Airline's part, and I'm glad they are suing. The two suspicious things to me here are 1. The captain's role / input. With something involving an upset group of passengers, the captain is usually notified, and certainly he would have been aware of the airline's alternate food policy, and required the attendants to apologize and acccommodate with the alternate foods like they did the other passengers. 2. This story seems to be quite sparse on direct comments from the Patels themselves, and seems to be written in "third person" style. Maybe because a lawsuit is involved, but I'd like to hear the Patel's own account of it. Also, I really agree, given the over-paranoid concern about terrorists these days that the best approach for passenger consumers to take when they are slighted by airline stupidity, incompetence and nonsense in the air is to calm down, laugh it off, be firm but pleasant then then give 'em legal hell when landing. as the Patels have. It's important to remember when complaining and "making a scene" the considerations of the comfort and safety of the other passengers, which have also paid just as much money for their flights. But if you really want to escalate with an uncooperative airline attendant, demand the head attendant have the captain get involved. That is the safest and most respectful way to show them you mean business. In this case, I also would have mentioned allergies, and legal responsibilities if any allergic reactions resulted, including possible lawsuits against individual attendants...but again, that's only at the point that you've tried being nice a few times first and a reasonable and customary request is met with ignorance and hostility...but then again, another tact one can take with an overworked, bitter attendant (who obviously shoud have stayed at the hotel and not gone on the plane) might be to complement them for trying, sympathize with the bad day they are having and say you're not taking it personally, it's just business.

Further thought...I find it really outrageous, given the absence of other details here that would prove the Patels put people in fear of safety, that attendants try to use the hammer of threatening arrest given the simple request that was asked. I hope they got their names, and if it's found they were in the wrong, I would settle for no less than their termination by the airlines for inappropriate harassment of paying customers on a flight. Attendants do have to put up with drama and nonsense sometimes themselves, but they need to remember that they are seeing the people as they really are, in their private lives, and since the attendants are working, and the passengers are not, the attendants have the overriding greatrer responsibility to be professional, patient, tolerant and polite. Consumers, on the other hand, only have the responsibility to cooperate to the degree they are not threatening other passengers or comfort. They DO NOT have the obligation of agreeing with everything an attendant says on other matters that are not safety related, and on food-safety related matters, can be just as vociferous as they would with any rude, uncooperative waiter in a restaurant. I would really like to see regulation allowing passengers to affect the compensation of attendants who don't serve them well, analagous to the tipping system... that would have settled the attitude problem of the attendant in this scenario. Perhaps this also begs the bigger question of having separate attendant roles of server versus safety steward so complaining about food service doesn't inappropriately make you a "threat" in the staff's eyes.

Finally, the suggestion about bring and eating one's own food to get around the issue is great. What problem would / should security have with that? None, assuming you didn't pack the ginsu knives. There is no consumer obligation to defer to the increasingly rancid and rotten and limited food selection airlines are providing these days at increasing cost.

@Consumer007:

When I flew in August all liquid-like items larger than 3oz in size, including somebody's stashed jello pudding cups, weren't permitted in carry-ons.

I tossed my food at security. But I was flying Skybus and bought my food on the plane.

@insomniac8400:
I don't know much about Hindu, but I know that if you're following a Kosher diet, you are not to eat food that may have touched other food-party items (Meat can not come in contact with dairy), strict Kosher requires two separate placesettings for meat & dairy, or requires that the utensils that came in contact with one be flamed (above 700degrees) before touching the other.

What happened to good ol' common sense? All the stewardesses had to do was ask the passengers if they would like an alternative. There was bread and fruit!

@vastrightwing: That last bit reads "period period period." Are you sick?

@aaron8301: oops last comment was for aaron! Misjudged the reply-to link.

@CaliforniaCajun: You want the kind of in-air service you got in the early 90s, fly JAL might not find that kind of service anymore (unless Virgin America covers the places you go).

@balthisar: I wouldn't mind paying an extra $100-500 per flight if it meant not having to deal with the TSA monkeys and horrid airline customer (dis)service. The only problem is that there is NO airline offering good customer service now.