Vietnam Airlines Complaint

SempreAzzuro

Just looking for a bit of advice.


My wife and I flew Vietnam Airlines (Gatwick to Ho Chi Minh City) on 4th February. Within 24 hours of landing both of us were suffering severe vomiting & diaoherra. We initially put it down to something we had eaten that evening in the city. My wife missed the pre-booked (as part of tour cost) half day city tour. Our tour guide kindly postponed it until the afternoon so that I could go, even though I still felt "out of sorts" (I did still have to rush to toilet a couple of times).
At start of the second full day, we got chatting to another couple who were on same trip (though unconnected to us) who had suffered exactly the same sickness. It turned out that all of the couples on this holiday had suffered too. The only common denominator was that we had eaten on the flight.
One of these couples said they had heard a person on the flight complaining the food was not hot, only to be told that one of the "ovens was not working". Admittedly, the omelette I was served was luke warm, but being hungry and not fancying the alternative I still ate it!
Since returning I have emailed Vietnam Airlines' London office as well as their customer relations person in Vietnam. Apart from 2 automated replies and one reply stating that they had received a report from "Catering UK" , I have heard nothing else. This is despite sending several emails. I have tried contacting the London office by phone but on each occasion it eventually goes to a voicemailbox.
One of the other couples had a reply saying that they would have to provide a medical report, but in fairness we all believed ours were individual cases of food poisoning initially and so therefore had not gone to the doctors in a foreign country.


Has anyone got any similar experience of dealing with this particular airline? Or do you have any further advice you could give please. We, as a result of this food poisoning, missed a large part of our stay in HCMC due to being incapacitated.

Caz3121

Being asked for a confirmed confirmation from a doctor that this was food poisoning would be pretty standard with this type of accusation
Norovirus has similar symptoms and is highly contagious so there may have been a passenger on the flight with this that has passed it around so I would think you will need to evidence that this was 100% related to the airline food to make a claim from the airline as they would likely deny this was caused by them without any evidence

tomtontom

What are you looking for from your complaint? As above, with no evidence of illness or cause, I can't see you getting far.

Voyager2002

You might contact the Environmental Health department of the local council for your departure airport (Heathrow?). The food would have been prepared by a catering company nearby and would only have been transferred to the airline shortly before loading on to the flight, so any fault would have been committed by a British company governed by English (or Scottish?) law.

mgdavid

So you were OK to go on a tour in the afternoon and you were both up and about and socialising the next day?
Neither of you were bad enough to need to call a doctor.
You lost half a day and your wife 1 day.
Occupational hazard of air travel / far east airline / far east diet IMO and a complete waste of your time worrying about it.