Erwin Lamm of Caulfield has been traveling to the Gold Coast with his wife Ilse for about 40 years with a supply of kosher meat. He never had a problem until he flew Tiger Airways.
When checking in at Tullamarine, a staffer abruptly told him he couldn’t take the meat that was packed in a cardboard box and hurried him along to catch the flight. Upset at the rudeness, Lamm, 87, suggested his daughter could collect the meat, but was told there was nowhere to store the box and it would be destroyed.
Lamm wrote a letter of complaint. “I have never had an issue with other airlines. I was very flustered and felt unwell during the flight”, he wrote. Lamm asked Tiger, known as the low-fare airline with low-cost service, to reimburse him $162 for the meat. Among the confiscated goods was BBQ chicken, cutlets, and ribs.
(Source: The Age, Austraila)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
5 Responses
this happens all the time when flying (with the post 9-11, post british bomb attempts situation).
take ONLY dry food, (no soup, no mayonaise, no gravy, etc) in carry on. and dont take more food than for the fight time. not a four course meal.
i know — they may lose your luggage (how come federal express almost never loses my luggage, but airlines do (almost) all the time!), there’s no kosher food at your destination, etc, but dont put it in carry on!
why is this item newsworthy?
Just to set the record straight, Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries are free of many infectious diseases that can cause untold damage to their animal populations and therefore they will destroy most animal derived products at the point of entry. This fellow is lucky he wasn’t arrested. The governments have signs posted at all ports of entry about these laws.
cowdoc, what the %#&^% are you talking about? He was flying from Melbourne to Surfers – what quarantine laws do you think apply? Why would he be arrested? There used to be restrictions on the interstate transport of fruit and veg, but never meat!
And MMHY, what are they meant to eat when they get there? Everyone kosher who goes to Surfers brings their own food; there was no way for him to know that davka this new airline would make a problem for him.
HHG, it’s newsworthy whenever someone makes tzores for frumme yidden. Now we know not to fly Tiger, unless they apologise to the Lamms, compensate them, and change their policy.
#4
Sorry, I didn’t do too well in geography. I thought he was bringing the food from another country