Passenger's colourful swipe at airline food goes viral

A picture of the airline meal posted on popbitch.com

A passenger's letter to Virgin boss Richard Branson complaining of a "culinary journey of hell" is now circling the globe faster than one of the airline's planes.

The anonymous writer has posted their lampooning of Branson on the website Popbitch.com and it has since gone viral after being picked up by emailers worldwide.

The letter is accompanied by photos and descriptions of the food that the passenger was served on a flight from Mumbai to London. It describes one dish as a "miscellaneous central cuboid of beige".

The letter adds: "On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had been broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird."

The writer goes on to say that after the meal, they needed a sugar hit.

"Lucky there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to its baffling presentation.

"It appears to be an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING."

And it wasn't only the food that the writer had a swipe at. The onboard television was also apparently not up to standard.

"I apologise for the quality of the photo, it's just that it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson's face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen."

The passenger signs off: "I can't imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary."

The Telegraph in the UK reports Virgin's spokesman Paul Charles saying that Sir Richard has called the author of the letter and thanked him for his "constructive if tongue-in-cheek" email.

Mr Charles told the Telegraph that his company was sorry that the passenger had not enjoyed the food which he described as "award winning" and "very popular on our Indian routes".

- NZ HERALD STAFF