The new menu features fresh, seasonal vegetables and ingredients inspired by temple cuisine.

Korean Air has introduced vegan inflight meals to cater to vegans and eco-conscious travellers who want to reduce carbon emissions.

These Korean-style vegan meals are inspired by traditional Buddhist temple cuisine and will boast natural flavours using fresh vegetables and seasonal ingredients.

Although the airline already offers six types of vegetarian meals, this new meal is crafted specifically for vegans.

Starting this month, the new meals will be offered to all passengers and will include options like steamed barley rice with burdock, roasted shiitake mushrooms, and roasted tofu with plum sauce. First or business-class travellers will have a better variety, including ginkgo nut porridge and roasted yam with soybean paste.

Passengers have the option to pre-order their meals up to 24 hours before takeoff through the Korean Air website, mobile app, or service centre. However, the inflight meals will depend on the specific route and time of year.

Vegan friendly airlines

Airlines are increasingly offering better plant-based meal options in order to meet the growing demand from passengers.

Recently, Alaska Airlines added a “Soy Meets World” salad option on flights over 1,100 miles, while Emirates reported a remarkable 154% increase in vegan meals served onboard between 2021 and 2022.

In 2021, Qatar Airways also announced that they would add gourmet vegan dishes to their à la carte menu for business class passengers on all flights out of Doha and select flights to Doha.

Worst vegan inflight meals

Despite the efforts to make inflight meals more inclusive, there are some airlines that haven’t got the memo.

Recently, a Japan Airlines business class traveller was served a single banana for breakfast.

Kris Chari, on a trip from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Tokyo, requested a vegan breakfast and shared her experience in a post on FlyerTalk.

“Before take-off today, my flight attendant confirmed that I ordered VGML (Vegetarian Vegan Meal) and that my breakfast was a banana, by which I mistakenly assumed she meant that breakfast included a banana,” Chari explained.

“When she served the banana after takeoff, I thought it was just an underwhelming appetizer, but it was in fact the entire meal service!”

After the somewhat disappointing breakfast, Chari claimed she was then served ‘barely seasoned spaghetti’ for lunch.

In another instance, an American Airlines vegan passenger was served cookies with eggs and a granola bar with honey.

“The paper bag it came in said vegan on it, and it was different from the breakfast that everyone else got (dairy yoghurt and a vegan cookie),” he wrote on Reddit.

“They ended up giving me a fancy fruit platter from first class. This is the second time this has happened to me on American Airlines, except last time they forgot my breakfast entirely and just gave me a slice of melon.”

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Mohsina Dodhiya

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