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For those of you have noticed my absence, I returned this weekend from a two-week trip to Uganda and was so busy beforehand it’s been a while since I blogged!
So, as I am still pining after the amazing trip I had with the charity Amigos, I felt it only right to document my in-flight experience!
I flew with British Airways – and luckily managed to get the exit seats both there and back, so enjoyed a spacious, comfortable flight!
I requested a gluten free meal before my flight, and here’s my top-to-toe rundown of my gluten free experience – mixed reviews all round!
London – Entebbe
My gluten free meals included….
- Chicken paella – this was suprisingly tasty! Quite spicy but actually really nice, so a good experience for that!
- Bread roll – kind of like a brick. I tried to slather it with spread and even salad dressing but couldn’t even manage half. Kudos to BA for trying, but really, it was a little like stepping back in time to BG (Before Genius)
- Side salad – simple, does what it says on the tin.
- Fruit salad – I picked at this and enjoyed it, fairly standard really, but good to have something which you know is safe to eat!
I also had a gluten free sandwich which, in all honesty, did not impress me at all! The label showed it had been made two days previous. I though smoked salmon was an odd choice of filling (surely there are a lot of people who don’t like that – personally would have gone with tuna if I was going down the fish line….) and the cucumber was slimey. Not good.
This came with grapes – which were good! Overall a mixed review – I would give the flight out there 7/10 – and a lot of that is for effort and the tasty paella.
Entebbe – London
Last time I flew with BA back from Uganda they forgot to pack my GF meal and I ended up eating from Club (business class) so I kept my fingers tightly crossed!!
Unfortunately, there was no such luck this time, and my meal included….
- Chicken and mushroom casserole with mashed potato – Interesting. The concept was good, and it was quite nice, but I think someone might have spilled a whole bucket of salt into mine. Now I ALWAYS add salt to my food, but this was just too much and I managed to just about eat half.
- Same sides as last time – ignored the bread roll and got no side salad…only dressing, which I found a little odd. Oh, and more grapes.
The ‘breakfast’ comprised of a second smoked salmon sandwich (again 2 days old, this time I didn’t bother even opening it), even more grapes and – I was very pleased to see – a yoghurt! So that and some strong coffee tided me over until my return home!
Overall marks for this meal, probably 6/10 – to be honest, it wasn’t anything amazing, but then, I guess you never expect any miracles from economy flights, so from that perspective I guess it was quite good!
Unfortunately, sitting on my own both ways I didn’t get any photos (didn’t want people to think I was the odd girl sat taking photos of her food on her own…) but I promise next time I will!
Instead let me leave you with this photo with a gorgeous family in Uganda….missing it already!!!
What have your flight experiences been like? Had anything particularly good or bad? Comment below and share your stories!
Thanks for posting this, I’m going on holiday next year and it looks likely that we’ll be flying with BA so nice to know there are options, bit worried about the fish though as I’m allergic to it :/
There are loads of options you can give and pretty sure you can probably request no fish in your meal too – just make sure you contact them in advance and am sure you will be fine 🙂
oh excellent, thank you, I’m clueless as it’ll be my first flight! It’s daunting trying to find Gluten Free options!
You had quite a good experience I flew earlier this year with BA and it was awful. I’ve vegetarian and coeliac and even though I rang up they said I couldn’t specify both. So I went coeliac and couldn’t eat the sandwich or either of my mains. Then for breakfast I got half a grapefruit and that was it! I was most dissapointed.
The problem with all retailers is they put gluten free sandwiches in a chiller which is a disaster because it does the opposite of keeping it fresh it actually accelerates staling
This is great as im always concerned about what i would eat on long all flights! 🙂 Could you do a blog post on how you go about eating gluten free abroad? Especially somewhere like Uganda? Unless Ive missed that completely and havent found it! xx
Hi Jo – I wrote one last year on my time in Uganda, viewable here: https://www.theglutenfreeblogger.com/2011/12/02/gluten-free-in-uganda/ I haven’t really done much travelling recently but as soon as I manage to get away again I will certainly write one! Hope that helps x
I flew to Oman in October and gluten free was shocking! Instead of a sandwich I had two stale rice cakes with one slice of iceburg lettuce and a slice of wafer turkey- crap! oh and a mouldy plum instead of a yoghurt- erm Yoghurt is Gluten free right!!!?
Yoghurt ought to be GF, but isn’t guaranteed to be unless it says so on the pack. Onken Natural and Lancashire Farm (Tesco – for some reason not with other yoghurt) are OK. A major French brand of Natural Yoghurt turned out not to be safe on enquiry.
I just flew to Bangladesh with Emirates and the gluten free meal on all 4 legs of the return flight was really very impressive. Some sort of rice-based chicken dish plus surprisigly edible bread roll, side salad, cheese selection and fruit each time. Definitely recommend.