Air India says no, it didn't serve a passenger a lizard with his in-flight meal

Air India has released a statement denying that it served a lizard with one of its in-flight meals, which means that at least one Air India employee is having a worse day than you are.  On Thursday, a picture of a meal tray with a small lizard peeking out from under a plastic-wrapped dinner roll made its way around social media. The questionable meal was allegedly served to a passenger on a Flight 111 from Delhi to London.

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An unnamed source told The Times of India:

A flight attendant got the said meal from the galley and soon after it was placed on to the tray, the passenger was heard screaming [...] The passenger was very upset and said that he would lodge a complaint with the airline on landing. He did not file a complaint then and there itself as he said he was not sure about the complaint reaching the airline.

But Air India released a statement and posted on Twitter (using the hashtag #denial) and has questioned whether the passenger – or the lizard – really existed. The Air India twitter account has also retweeted every picture of its inflight meals that other passengers have posted in the past few days, as if it's saying "See? No lizards here!"

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The airline has accused whoever posted the "mischievous propaganda" of attempting to "tarnish the image" of Air India, although it seems like a lunch lizard is less damaging to its image than, say, its pilots showing up drunk or fighting each other in the cockpit. Regardless, India's Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju took the airline's side. "Air India is not expected to serve lizards, nor are cooks expected to cook lizards," he said.