Flying while vegetarian: Air France
Even though food has pretty much completely disappeared from US domestic flights, there are still plenty of airline meals being served on long-haul flights around the world. Luckily, pretty much every airline will serve you a vegetarian meal these days, although the quality of these meals can vary greatly. Make sure you put in your request in time – most airlines require you to order a special meal at least 24 hours before your flight.
Last week I flew Air France from Boston to Munich, with a stopover in Charles de Gaul airport in Paris. I actually forgot to order my vegetarian meal in time (usually I just get them automatically, since most websites allow you to save your meal preferences, but this time we booked through a funky website and I just forgot). The first time a flight attendant came by, I explained (politely – remember, people are much more likely to help you out when you’re kind and respectful) my situation and asked if they happened to have any extra veg meals on board. She said she’d see what she could do, and also told me that often one of the two regular meal choices is vegetarian anyway, so I’d probably be ok.
Turns out they did have an extra vegetarian meal on hand. The main dish was cooked vegetables with rice – nothing too exciting, but much healthier-looking than the ravioli that the ‘regular’ folks were eating. My meal also came with a wedge of camembert cheese, a small salad, a mini-baguette, and two desserts. I’m pretty sure the main dish was vegan, as was the salad.
On our second flight (which was much shorter – less than 2 hours), we were served beverages and a cream cheese sandwich on squishy white sandwich bread. It was decent enough.
Overall Air France gets high marks for vegetarian-friendliness, even though it wasn’t exactly the most delicious airline food I’ve ever had.
What airline has the best vegetarian food in your experience?
Hi Jul, I’ve had good experience with Air France, too. But the hands down, absolute best vegetarian meal I’ve had on an airline was on Aloha Airlines. It was a while ago but I still remember fantastic fresh fruit, cottage cheese and they gave out warm chocolate chip cookies for the movie. Almost forgot I was on a plane!
That sounds great! I hope I have the chance to try out Aloha myself one of these days.
These days I’d have to put in my vote for Lufthansa as I just had a fabulous ‘Asian Veg’ meal in December on my flight to the US, or maybe I’m just flying them more recently so they’re in my mind.
A site I like in case you haven’t seen it–people take photos of their airline meals, and you can view vegetarian meals, by airline: http://www.airlinemeals.net/indexSpecialmeals.html
I usually fly SAS. On my recent flight to the US, the food was terrible. I nearly gagged! But on the flight back, I was thrilled with everything I was served. It’s really hit or miss!
Even if I wasn’t veg, I’d order a special meal. I love getting served 30 min. before everyone else.
True, when you order a special meal you get it before everyone else! Bliss!
I once forgot to order my veggie meal when flying Continental from NY to London. The hostess gave me such a lesson about pre-booking my meal that it put me off flying Continental ever again!
Thanks for the link, Heather! Looks very interesting… and I’ll have to try the Asian veg meal next time I fly Lufthansa.
Way back in the olden days, sometimes special meals were brought out AFTER all the other meals… I used to hate waiting for mine! It is nice that they bring them early now.
I had a vegan meal on my way back to the US on AirFrance and I couldn’t have been happier. My food was actually GOOD and I had soypudding and tofu to boot! All you have to do is reserve ahead of time and you’re set!