An Air India (AI) junior crew member was allegedly slapped by a cabin crew supervisor for serving non-vegetarian food to a vegetarian passenger on board a Frankfurt-bound flight from New Delhi, according to airline officials.

The incident took place on 17 March.

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The cabin attendant “by mistake” served non-vegetarian food instead of vegetarian food to a passenger in the business class of its New Delhi-Frankfurt flight. The passenger pointed out the mistake to the cabin supervisor but did not file any complaint, a source said.

However, when being made aware of her mistake, the attendant apologised to the passenger and replaced the meal.

Later, the cabin crew supervisor took up the issue with the junior colleague/flight attendant and slapped her for the mistake, the source claimed.

The junior colleague did not retaliate but later filed a complaint with Air India’s inflight service department over the incident, the source said.

An Air India spokesperson said that carrier’s inflight service department has launched an internal probe into the incident.

“We have received a complaint from the cabin crew of the flight AI 121 (New Delhi-Frankfurt). An internal inquiry has been set up to investigate the allegations in the complaint,” the Air India Spokesperson said.

Incidents when airlines were in news for all the wrong reasons:

• In March 2017, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad from Maharashtra had thrashed an Air India cabin crew with a slipper over seating issue. He was temporarily banned airlines for his misbehavior. The incident prompted the government to roll out a no-fly list in September last year for people who behave unruly during air travel.
• Last year, a video went viral showing IndiGo ground staff allegedly assaulting a passenger. The video was captured by another ground staff. The issue was also raised in Parliament.
• In November last year, Olympic champion PV Sindhu had slammed IndiGo airlines ground staff on social media for allegedly misbehaving with her during her flight from Hyderabad to Mumbai. World number 2 shuttler, Sindhu, had said that she had experienced an ‘unsatisfactory’ treatment en route her flight to Mumbai.
• In the past, Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh had also criticised the British Airlines and Jet Airways, respectively, for shabby treatment.