Vistara serves ’Hindu Meals’, ’Muslim Meals’ on flights, creating social media uproar: Here’s what it actually means

Accusing Vistara of communalising food, a woman called-out the airline for labelling food as ‘Hindu Meal’ and ‘Muslim Meal’.

In a post on X, Journalist Aarti Tikoo Singh tagged Vistara and asked why the vegetarian meal is called ‘Hindu meal’ and chicken meal called ‘Muslim meal’ on their flights.

Further, she also questioned the airline as to who told them that all Hindus are vegetarian and all Muslims are non-vegetarian?

“Why are you thrusting food choices on people? Who authorised you to do this?,” she questioned

Further, she asked if they were going to communalise vegetables, chicken and passengers on a flight too?" I was so shocked by this pathetic behavior that I booked both meals to defy your order."

The journalist also tagged Ministry of Civil Aviation in her post and urged to inquire.

Tikko's post is going viral with nearly 200 comments and over 600 reposts.

Vikram Sood, whose X bio reads formerly headed R&AW and currently Adviser, ORF, termed it as absurd and dangerous descriptions.

“So now we have meals based on religions? Wow!! @DGCAIndia please stop this practice immediately,” said one more user.

“This is totally inexplicable and misleading. They must withdraw this classification earliest possible,” posted Anup Jaiswal.

Airline Veteran explains meal codes

However, another X user pointed out that a Hindu Meal (HNML) is not necessarily a Veg meal and shared a few general meal codes.

"FYI in general aviation parlance, a Hindu Meal (HNML) is NOT necessarily a Veg meal - it could be a Non Veg meal that is not Halal. Similarly a Moslem meal (MOML) is a Non Vegetarian meal that is HALAL," said Sanjay Lazar, CEO, Avialaz.

He further added that a Vegetarian meal, on the other hand, is a pure veg meal.

"(AVML or a VGML- non dairy or VLML or VOML) You will find that Vistara has done the right thing and you may also google what I have said to verify. I am enclosing a few general meal codes for clarity, there are almost a 100 globally," Lazar said.

Sanjiv Kapoor, the former CEO-designate of Jet Airways, also reacted to the post and said, these codes are used by all airlines that use global GDS systems such as Amadeus to standardize meal codes across geographies and connecting flights.

"Low cost carriers do not use these systems therefore may use different codes. Trust me - have been in aviation 30 years," the aviation veteran added.