Fixing meals after travel agent

Dozens of flight companies with each several classes and several packages. I can understand it's not easy knowing which flight has which services.

Sometimes a small typo in reservations might cause interesing results. The Egencia ticket office had tried to book me VJML meal instead of VLML meal. VJML is apparently Vegetarian Jain Meal. I didn't know this existed. Apparently it does, and Air Mauritius has the information. Googling around results following information:

What the system has now for me is: undef (ALLP.list.SpecialMeal.VJML)

That sounds great! It seems there were three other definations for meal as well.. I wonder what will be the result.  Bottomline is, it seems, vegan with special indian seasoning.

Here's another good link! http://www.happycow.net/travel/air_travel.html

It has instructions on how to get vegetarian meal on plane. Done that but it does not always help and is consuming process. Also, air lines listed based on what they serve. But they don't consider Lufthansa's short haul flights servings.... No veggie food available there.

I may still have to contact TAP portugal and probably Finnair, too.

To be updated later...

Yiey, to Catalonia!

Helsinki - Münich

Münich - Barcelona

Lufthansa

Lufthansa offers always meal. But if you're a vegetarian or have religious diet, too bad, it's always meat. And there's nothing you can do about it. There are no alternatives. And by meat I totally mean large chunks of it. Flight had hot sandwich with meat and some melted cheese. Complimentary drinks were served. Something else very minor accompanied the meat-wich.

Lufthansa seems to be very meat-centric airways. Many others who offer one choice complimentary meal  (such as Malev) have switched to cheese sandwiches, but Lufthansa is still meatly airways. Don't bother asking alternative options, since they don't have it and aren't very interested in it either. 

 

Barcelona - Helsinki

Blue1

Blue1 is a SAS owned by company. As you might know, I am not too fancy of SAS itself. You can read about it more in other flight posts. Blue1 is to be categorized to "almost like low-cost carrier" category.

Needless to say, there was no free meal offered on this flight. Blue1 advertises they offer meals, but they didn't even bother rolling the wagons. The flight seemed to be inhabited by the poor au-pairs and trainees and those who were coming back from Thailand (obviously drunk). As there's nothing to say about the meals, I could add that the flight wasn't very pleasant in other ways either.

Unesco Conference in The Hague (Den Haag)

Helsinki - Amsterdam

Finnair

Yay, this is why I like the Finnair: You get a complimentary VLML vegetarian meal without any hassless and free drinks. No matter how short the flight is, you always will. Most of the companies have given up all of the lunches, but not Finnair.

I want to thank the ATP travel agency as well. The ATP operates as following: they set up an email for the specific event where the special guests send their requests and they take care of the rest. I sent my email about the hotel and the flight and asked if they can give me a Finnair flight if possible, and order a VLML meal for me. Tada! I get a Finnair flight WITH a vlml exactly as I requested. It seems that most of the companies give up trying with the VLML, but I must give a big hand for ATP for doing it well.

The Finnair lets you check in by SMS, and I might try going through the airport security with my mobile phone only. This all gives me a nostalgic feeling about the history... From the time when you had to get your passport stamped, had to exchange the money (thank the euros!), had to get the paper tickets from the travel agency and had to queue to get the boarding passes (and preferably come in early to get good places)... But also: It was the time when they served good food on every flight without exceptions, when you didn't have to even question the on-board meal.

Iceland, here I come

Helsinki - Reykjavik
Reykjavik - Helsinki

Icelandair

Umm.. The Icelandic economy collapsed during the bank chrisis at the end of the 2008. For an eurotraveller this is a nice news, since everything has became, if not cheap at least more affordable. But unfortunately that hit also the flight industry. The Icelandic Air cut their free meals right after the collapse in 2008, and they havent returned since. However, they still offer complimentary free drinks. To be honest, the airplane meals arent too expensive either. At best you might get your meal for 3 euros. How ever I didnt take the meal.

So: only a soda and an orange juice for this flight.

booking flights is stressy

I hate booking flights. I was booking flights today for Helsinki- Barcelona for Academic assessment trip. I couldn't get e-ticket for Spanair, but when I booked the exactly same flight, exactly same price, but under different air label (lufthansa) I got the eTicket. It was offering me some sort of prepaid ticket, that I would have to fetch from a counter and pay to fetch that ticket. Uh. No thanks.

The return flight is Blue1 operated if i remember correctly. I know SAS and I totally dont like it. I am expecting worst, since this is SAS's cheap fly subcorporation. If SAS is bad already as it is, what will the sibling company look like?

Prove me I'm wrong, SAS. 

Due to bad experiences with SAS I didn't book 2 hours shorter flight via Copenhagen. (Blue1 operated as well). I was booking this all with egencia.be. I love the service and I wish I could use it for any travelling. I am again trying to get the Egencia consultant to reserve me vegetarian meal, but I dont think they'll do it this time either. Especially that Lufthansa isnt offering such for short distance flights -at least not to Helsinki.

 

Upcoming flights:

UNKNOWN operator: Helsinki - Reykjavik (via UNKNOWN)

Lufthansa: Helsinki - Barcelona (via Munich)

Sas: Barcelona - Helsinki (direct, No food to be expected I think..)

N/A operator: Helsinki - Copenhagen

N/A operator: Helsinki - Lissabon

 

Handy links for traveller:

München Airport map (you'll need this!)

Airline meals website:  Spanair meal

Vegetarian Airline meals! Very hand, but outdated

I wish they'd tell they don't offer special meals on these flights

Helsinki - Stockholm

Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS)

I have a lot to criticize about the SAS. First of all, I dont want to watch advertising at back of the next person's seat. I want to relax on the flight since it is consuming, not watch the advertising...

Secondly, I feel akward about the inequal treatment in the airplane. The SAS plane had three sections, namedly the first class, the economy express and the economy. In the first class they served lunch that sounds cool, in the economy express they serve the normal boring flight food for those who pay higher ticket rates. I'd imagine the corporate flyers reserve the more expensive seat in the economy express to get the lunch... since those ones in the plain economy class didn't receive anything to eat or drink during the flight. 

Thirdly, I'd really want to know before hand if the flight is even serving the vegetarian food. I don't want to find out in the airplane, that they don't actually even have special diets on board. Luckily I didn't pay for the flight, as I'd be so angry now. I reserved the vegetarian food from Suomen matkatoimisto travel agency, but I was not informed that they don't even serve such a thing.

Okay, so what about the food?

I step in the plane and ask the hostess and the steward if I can get / have the vegetarian meal for sure. They reply that they don't serve vegetarian meals on this flight. We discuss a bit and they ask for my seat number. They say they'll see what they can do.

I totally wonder why are there two economy classes. My place is in the other section than my traveling mates, and I shrug. But when they start serving the food, it becomes clear: the economy class won't receive any food at all. Blah! The inequality feels akward.

But I must thank the steward a lot since they manage to bring me a vegetarian sandwich! Even they don't serve those on this flight. Thanks, made my (early) morning! The lady next to me looks at me in an oddly fashion during the whole flight. I don't know if it is my bag, or if it is the vegetarian sandwich that is different from her meat sandwich, or if she feels I shouldn't be in the "semi-corporate class" or something. I find her behaviour odd and disturbing.

My travel mates reserved tickets the previous week for 95 or so euros. My plane ticket's pricetag was 310 euros or more. Even though it was reserved a few days before the flight, I could say this 200 euros breakfast was the far most expensive breakfast I've ever had, and definately one of the worst, too. 

What does a 200 euros breakfast look like?

• 0,3 dl of orangejuice
• very dry "health" bisquit
• and a rye bread with 2 cheese slices, paprika slice and green salad leaf
• tea or coffee serving, but no free soft drinks, juice or water like usually

That's it. Sucks if you don't drink coffee or tea, since the 0,3 dl juice is not too much for a dry bread and a dry health bisquit. yarghh...

If I had bought the same breakfast from the airport, the price tag had been around 7 euros, and I had received thrice the amount of juice and I could have chosen it from three varieties. 

I must say, I will try to avoid SAS from now on. This left a very bad taste to my mouth, despite the kind and helpful flight staff.

Wow, it worked - unfortunately I don't know how

Helsinki - Zürich

Zürich - Helsinki

FINNAIR

Okay, this time I was flying to Switzerland and back (and went with train to Germany, but that's other thing). My dad bought the tickets, apparently from ebookers and reserved me vegetarian diet (VLML) while booking it. There is "wishes for flight" section, where you enter your diet.

And wow, I really did get vegetarian food, even without asking at desk or from the steward. It was the same thing when I came back. No asking, yes service.

This is how it should be, thanks Finnair and ebookers :)