Back on track: Vistara begins serving hot vegetarian meals on domestic flights as Covid situation improves

The airline added that it will continue to adapt its services in accordance with consumer preferences as well as COVID-19 precautions and guidelines.

Vistara: Indian carrier Vistara on Thursday announced that it is introducing new inflight meals to the cabins on its domestic flights. Apart from this, hot vegetarian meals are also resuming for the Economy Class passengers in Vistara flights operating in India from Thursday itself. Guidelines related to serving of meals on domestic flights have been nothing less than a roller coaster ride since the pandemic struck India in March 2020. After domestic flights were allowed to resume operations in May last year after the first coronavirus lockdown, all inflight meals had been banned as per guidelines so as to prevent passengers from removing their masks during the short-duration domestic flights. Then, in August 2020, the government revised guidelines to allow serving of pre-packed meals and beverages to passengers.

In April 2021, when the severe second wave of the pandemic hit, Centre imposed guidelines that restricted airlines from providing any inflight meals on domestic airlines that had a duration of less than two hours, in light of the rising cases.

Now, though, finally, hot meals have resumed.

Vistara said that it had received consumer feedback that travellers were more confident about consuming meals while traveling, which is why they decided to resume hot vegetarian meals on board their domestic flights. Apart from this, new meal options have been introduced for Business and Premium Economy cabins, the airlines said in a statement.

Vistara has said that the inflight menu would be refreshed every three days and would include options for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, like Masala Uttappam, Idli Sambar, Medu Vada, etc for breakfast, and options like Vegetable Biryani with Dal Makhani and Jeera Pulao with Chana Masala for lunch and dinner. Snacks will have options like Masala Pao with Bhaji and Hot Garlic Vegetables with Noodles.

The airline added that it will continue to adapt its services in accordance with consumer preferences as well as COVID-19 precautions and guidelines.