They’re not bananas about this measly meal option.
A passenger on board a Japan Airlines flight was outraged when he received a single banana as his vegan meal — and a pair of chopsticks to eat it with.
Kris Chari was traveling from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Tokyo when he ordered the vegan meal for the seven-hour flight.
Chari reported his disappointing meal on the air travel forum FlyerTalk, saying he had thought it was a pre-breakfast snack — not the entire meal.
“Before takeoff today my flight attendant confirmed that I ordered VGML and that my breakfast was a banana, by which I mistakenly assumed she meant that breakfast included a banana,” Chari wrote on Feb. 21. “When she served the banana after takeoff I thought it was just an underwhelming appetizer — but it was in fact the entire meal service!”
Chari then told a flight attendant he was “frankly quite shocked” to learn that the banana was a catered meal.
‘It was cute of the crew to serve the banana with chopsticks, though!’
Kris Chari, hungry airline passenger
“It’s a bit insulting to be served a single banana while others are given a far more substantial and flavorful menu,” he told Insider. “It seems especially important given the growth in the number of vegans and vegetarians.”
Yes, there were two meal services during the flight, a snack and light refreshment and lunch.
However, the much heartier “snack” options for non-vegans was seared tuna with a Moroccan eggplant salad, cheese with orange salsa and a baguette, according to the airline’s menu.
Although Chari admitted it was a “really good banana” — in fact “one of the best” he’d eaten recently — the confused passenger was still appalled it was classified as an entire meal.
“It still seems more appropriate as a snack,” they wrote. “Is catering out of [Soekarno–Hatta International Airport] typically this underwhelming?”
However, “it was cute of the crew to serve the banana with chopsticks, though!” he quipped.
Chari described his subsequent vegan lunch as “barely seasoned spaghetti” and said although their other meals with Japan Airlines have also bad in the past, nothing has been quite as “insubstantial” as the single banana.
The non-vegan lunch options included grilled beef tenderloin, a cheese omelet, ratatouille, grilled salmon and chicken sausage.
The airline’s website shows a “vegetarian vegan meal” option with a photo showing halal sorbet, a baguette, a dish with rice and multiple vegetable-based looking bowls.
Chari and Japan Airlines did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment. However, a rep for the airline told Insider, “We apologize for not being able to meet expectations.”
