It was not originally on the menu, but one chicken leg from KFC was all that passengers on a British Airways flight got on a 12-hour flight to London due to a catering snafu.

An account in the travel blog One Mile At A Time said the incident happened last Sunday (July 23).

Ben Schlappig, who wrote about what happened, said British Airways Flight 252 was about to fly out of Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands — a British overseas territory in the Atlantic ocean — when its crew learnt it had a catering problem.

The plane’s catering carts were not properly chilled, so all the food meant for the 12-hour flight to London had to be thrown out.

After the plane landed in Nassau, in the Bahamas, for a stopover, the crew arranged alternative catering — several buckets of chicken from KFC.

Both business class and economy passengers got the same meal — fried chicken.

An Instagram video showed flight attendants holding KFC buckets and handing out chicken legs to passengers on business class.

A Twitter post, meanwhile, showed a “lucky passenger” with two pieces of chicken.

Those on board the plane were understandably upset.

“Laughable,” user KeepinUpW’Soghmanian said on Twitter. “People with medical conditions left without any food or proper refreshments.”

On Instagram, wheres_wally27 remarked: “BA are right up there with a budget airline begging with the letter R that I refuse to fly with, due to atrocious customer services!!!”

Another described the incident as an “absolute disgrace”, asking: “How do you forget the catering for a 12-hour flight?”

Others, though, were more forgiving.

“At least an alternative was provided in the circumstances, and I’d imagine some further sort of compensation would have been doled out,” chiefwakawaka said on Instagram.

Mr Schlappig, the travel writer, said British Airways “actually deserves a bit of credit, even if it wasn’t a great experience for passengers”.

“I can’t imagine any passenger would have preferred to have their flights delayed by several hours or even cancelled over food. So, trying to find some alternative while minimising the delay seems like the best option,” he said.

But he said KFC, despite its “finger lickin’ good” chicken, would not have been his first pick either.

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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.