Man finds live bugs in plane meal on $14,000 business class trip
A plane passenger on board a long-haul flight claimed his meal came with "small, live bugs" crawling all over his salad, something he didn't expect after paying thousands for a ticket.
The American Airlines customer, named Ricky James on Twitter, flew business class from Frankfurt, Germany, to Dallas, Texas, recently but was disappointed with the "quality of service" in the air.
The plane ticket set him back a huge US$10,000 (A$13,900), he claimed in a post online, so he expected better service from the major airline.
But when he alerted staff of his creepy-crawly find, he alleged they "simply laughed it off" before offering him a replacement salad.
The frustrated passenger Tweeted a video of his meal, which shows small black specks which look to be moving beneath the plastic on his plate.
It appears as though he hadn't even unwrapped his meal when he spotted what he alleged were bugs.
"@AmericanAir here is a video I took from my flight today from FRA to DFW … food with live bugs being served and a staff that simply laughed it off and asked if I wanted a different salad," he tweeted last week.
On the same day, the airline replied directly to the Tweet.
"Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We'll send this over to the right team to review this further," they wrote.
The business-class passenger said on Friday that he hadn’t yet heard back from American Airlines but suggested there might be an "ongoing" issue for Gate Gourmet – the airline catering company that supplied the meals.
Although, he showed no evidence of this claim.
On Tuesday he said he'd received a call from the airline but did not detail the outcome of the call.
American Airlines told the New York Post they were "concerned" about the claims and said it's not up to their usual standards.
"We are investigating this matter and are working directly with our catering provider in Frankfurt," they reportedly said in a statement.
"A member of our team has reached out to the customer to apologize and learn more about their experience."
One person on Twitter suggested a possible solution to the problem, saying: "How about his $10K back?"
While another said it's "disgusting and unacceptable".
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