Airline food has come a long way since back in the day when it was something you wouldn’t feed your dog. Then again, at one stage you could smoke in a plane so I guess it was pretty much a case of anything goes.

Well imagine how disgusted you would be if you were tucking into your meal and you found a maggot having a field day in your food. That’s what happened to Pretoria resident Stella van Heerden, flying home from a holiday on board Air Mauritius flight MK851. Traveller24 reports:

“It was really upsetting for me, as I had eaten half of my meal already,” said Van Heerden. “I believe they came from the mushrooms, I looked down, asking myself, ‘What is this?’

“I took a photo with my iPad and enlarged it. That’s when I saw it was a maggot and said ‘no this can’t be?’. “Maggots!?”

After bringing it to the flight attendants attention, Van Heerden said he explained it might be some “kind of spice”.

“He tried to cut it in front of me and then agreed that it definitely was not a spice. It was a maggot! “I didn’t even think to get the flight attendants name, as I was too busy concentrating on not throwing up.”

Yes, the lesser known maggot spice, famed for its ability to make you throw up immediately upon consumption. But Stella wasn’t done there, it turns out there wasn’t much right about the flight from start to finish:

“They didn’t even bring me water or offer me Eno even though I was clearly feeling very ill and even told them I was feeling sick. Instead, I had to take two nausea tablets from a lady who was sitting two rows down from me,” Van Heerden said.

Van Heerden said it was at this point that they really took a closer look at the plane, which was “not a good state” in her opinion.

“When we boarded I initially had to wipe down the remote control for my son since it was very sticky, the tray tables also felt dirty and sticky. I was just so grateful that he had not eaten his meal because it was also terrible. We couldn’t make out if it was fish or chicken nuggets and my son said it tasted old.”

No one wants to chow down on fly larvae, and we can’t blame Stella for getting upset, but the words ‘first-world problems’ spring to mind. That being said when you’re paying thousands of rand for a flight you expect food that isn’t full of unwanted protein.

[source:traveller24]