As the bird flu threat has receded and with no new case cropped up in the past couple of weeks many airlines have opted to serve chicken dishes on board.
The usual favourites like cheese omelette with chicken sausage and chicken breast with toast were sighted on many flights Wednesday morning."Many of the flights have asked us to get poultry back on the list," said Sunil Taneja, director business development, TajSats catering service, one of the country's biggest meal suppliers to the airlines industry.
To start with, Jet Airways and Indian Airlines have asked to get chicken back on their flight menu. International carriers like South African airlines, Delta, Air France and Emirates have asked TajSats to start serving poultry on board their flights from March 10, Taneja told IANS.
After the bird flu virus was detected in Maharashtra around Feb 20, India's poultry industry was hit, as catering services, including those of several airlines and the state-run railways, took chicken off their menus.
While the railways stopped serving the all-time favourite 'egg curry' on certain routes, airline caterers have substituted poultry products with mutton, lamb and fish.
Some airlines asked their caterers to revise the menu while those like Chef Air and Taj voluntarily stopped supplying chicken. "We were serving mutton, fish and seafood to some airlines, instead of chicken," Taneja said.
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