British Airways serves KFC fried food to passengers on 12-hour flight after catering gaffe

Even passengers in the business class were served with KFC fried chicken (Image: Twitter/@aktivandrew)

Passengers on a 12-hour-long British Airways flight were served fried chicken of the KFC brand after a catering gaffe led to all the food which was loaded on the plane being disposed of, reports said on July 26.

The incident took place on June 23 on the BA252 flight that took off from Turks and Caicos - a British Overseas Territory close to the Bahamas - and arrived in London after an air journey of 12 hours.

A Twitter user Andrew Bailey, who claimed to be onboard the flight, said he was told that a "chilling container with food failed on the plane", which led to the food that was loaded on the aircraft to be thrown out.

After the aircraft took a mid-journey stop at the Bahamas, the crew arranged for KFC fried chicken to serve the passengers.

@British_Airways just landed @HeathrowAirport after a 12.5 hour flight BA252 from Turks and Caicos with no catering! BA had to serve @kfc at Nassau giving some lucky passengers 1 piece of chicken. The container with the plane catering wasn’t chilled so all thrown away!! pic.twitter.com/U5IcBD2hRy

— Andrew Bailey (@aktivandrew) July 24, 2023

An Instagram user, who shared a video of the flight attendants serving pieces of chicken to passengers onboard from a KFC bucket, said "only one chicken leg per passenger" was served.

"...they then said they would be handing out vouchers as we left the plane which myself and travel partner never received. Absolute disgrace, how do you forget the catering for a 12 hour flight? (sic)," the user further added.

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A British Airways spokesperson, who spoke to news.com.au, defended the flight crew, saying that they had to take a decision based on the limited available options before them. "Our teams sprung into action and made sure our customers onboard our flight had something to eat."

"We apologise to customers that their full meal service was not available and that we had to wing it on this occasion,"  the spokesperson was further quoted as saying.

While a number of social media users condemned the airline for its conduct, a few also came out in its defence. "As someone who is a flight attendant with a different airline, I can understand the frustration that the crew must have gone through to try and come up with a solution. However, it was the fault of the catering company, not British Airways," one Twitter user commented.