New Delhi: In a major embarrassment to the government, a meal tray with a lizard in it was served to a passenger onboard an Air India flight on Thursday.
According to reports, passengers of London-bound flight AI 111 were served with lunch after the flight took off from Delhi at 1 pm. However, as soon as one of the passengers, who had asked for a special meal, unwrapped his meal tray, he got a terrible shock.
The meal tray, which had salad and a burger wrapped in a plastic film, also had a dark baby lizard in it. This left the other passengers bewildered and they too declined to have their food.
Realising the mistake at their end, the cabin crew offered the passenger to replace the meal tray. However, the passenger refused the offer and later lodged an official complaint with Air India regarding the issue, reports stated.
However, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju called it a serious issue and also assured to look into the matter.
“This is a serious issue. Air India is not expected to serve lizards nor are the cooks expected to cook lizards,” Raju was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Meanwhile, Air India has rubbished the reports that lizard was found in any of its passenger's meal tray.
"This incident never happened. As there is no record of it, no complained that was filed either in London, New Delhi or on-board the flight. No cabin crew or even the other passengers on the flight are even aware of such an incident and no one has come forward to complaint even now," a senior Air India official in New Delhi told IANS.
The airlines later took to Twitter and wrote:
#Clarification #Denial #Air India would like to clarify that the news on Twitter & elsewhere regarding a "lizard in meal tray" (1/3)
— Air India (@airindiain) June 13, 2015
On board AI 111 DEL-LHR of 11th June, is #false & #baseless. (2/3)
— Air India (@airindiain) June 13, 2015
No such complaint has been received from any passenger on board the flight or at Air India office in LHR. (3/3)
— Air India (@airindiain) June 13, 2015
