Saturday, August 29, 2020

Beer to be the only alcoholic drink on AI international flights from September 7; hot meal services to resume too

New Delhi: Beer will be the only alcoholic beverage to be served on Air India’s international flights from September 7. The airline will resume hot meal service on international; and pre-packed snacks/meals along with non-alcoholic beverages on domestic flights by the same date.

The Maharaja has appointed a new vendor to provide content for back-of-the-seat inflight entertainment (IFE) and is trying to bring those screens back to life at the earliest by following the strict disinfection protocol before each flight for all passenger touchpoints.

Before the pandemic, AI used to have a wide variety of alcoholic offering like scotch, vodka, wine, gin and beer. But after Corona outbreak from March, everything changed. Cash-strapped AI’s back-of-seat IFE has been iffy for some years now with large number of systems needing to be repaired or replaced and the Maharaja having no funds to do so.

A senior AI official said: “On international flights, liquor service will be limited to beer in all classes — economy, business and first. There will be no pouring service and beer will be served in disposable glasses or cans. Similarly we are trying to resume hot meals service on foreign flights by September 7. (The time is required to make) disposable equipment available across the network. The standard operating procedure is being circulated to our inflight caterers so that it meets the requirements.”

Given the requirement for disposable cutlery, pre-packed meals/snacks, tea/coffee and other non-alcoholic beverages on domestic AI flights are also likely to resume by September 7.

AI has during the pandemic been keeping pre-packed snacks, meals, non-alcoholic beverages and water bottles in packets on seats of its international flights to minimise crew-passenger interaction. Meal quantity is as per flight duration. Extra water bottles are kept in galley which flyers can pick as per their requirement.

AI has been operating ultra long hauls during the pandemic like nonstops between Delhi and San Francisco, Vancouver and Auckland apart from long and medium hauls to North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia.
India has two full service carriers — AI and Vistara — that serve meals and beverages without extra charge. Budget carriers IndiGo, SpiceJet, AirAsia India and GoAir sell the same onboard, making this an important source for ancillary revenue which they will be keen to revive. Comments from these airlines about their plans to resume onboard meal/beverage service following the government nod were sought and awaited till the time of going to press.
28/08/20 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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