Does Aeromexico offer vegan meals? My experience!

Are you flying Aeromexico soon? Have you found mixed information online about their vegan offering?

This was me a few months ago. I couldn’t find any solid information about Aeromexico’s vegan offering, and I had an 11-hour flight booked with them from London Heathrow to Mexico City.

I did some digging and found one website stating that Aeromexico did offer vegan meals but it provided zero evidence of this. And the airline’s own website didn’t advertise a vegan offering. So I was left feeling very confused. So I knew I would simply have to find out for myself and then create this article for you!

Now, having flown with Aeromexico, I can confirm it is good news for those of us looking to eat vegan on Aeromexico!

Does Aeromexico offer vegan meals?

I recently flew on a long-haul flight with Aeromexico and I can confirm that they do offer vegan meals. However, it isn’t obvious that they do. When you request it you will need to ask for the meal code VGML (the universal code for vegan meals), which they actually have advertised as a ‘Vegetarian’ meal.

Their website doesn’t include a ‘Vegan Meal’ offering in their special meal selection, as you can see here. Instead, they have a ‘Vegetarian’ meal and a ‘Lacto-Ovo-Vegetarian’ meal. The customer service representative that I spoke with wasn’t able to confirm that the ‘Vegetarian’ meal came without any animal products, but he did confirm that it had the code VGML.

If you’ve read my other articles about vegan meals on other airlines, including Vietnam Airlines and Qatar Airways, you will have noticed that the VGML code is pretty much universal and means vegan.

Moreover, I assumed that since Aeromexico specifically offers a ‘Lacto-Ovo-Vegetarian’ meal, which includes dairy and eggs, the ‘Vegetarian’ meal might be dairy- and egg-free. This led me to believe that they may have simply mislabeled their vegan meal.

So, I was feeling somewhat confident that if I chose the ‘Vegetarian’ meal (with code VGML), I would in fact get a vegan meal. Thankfully, I was right. The meals I was served on my flight were vegan. I had vegan butter and bread, and both my dishes contained zero cheese, eggs, or any other animal products.

There are very few people talking about this online, so I am unsure if I am right about their mislabelling (particularly since their customer service was so useless), or if I just lucked out and the VGML code worked because I was flying out of London Heathrow. Have you flown Aeromexico and requested a vegan meal before? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

How do you request a vegan meal with Aeromexico?

Historically, Aeromexico hasn’t made it easy to request a special meal. You had to call customer service and request your special meal over the phone. This meant navigating their automated selection process and maybe sitting on hold for a short while.

But thankfully, they have made it a lot easier to request a special meal through their online chat function. Head to their main website, and you should see a chatbot symbol in the bottom right-hand corner. Click on this, fill in your details, and select ‘Special Services’.

If you don’t see the chat function or you prefer to call, you can get in contact with Aeromexico and request your vegan meal by using the relevant phone number for your country below:

Please note: If your Aeromexico flight was booked via a travel agency, you need to request your meal with them instead. Usually, you can do this at the time of booking, depending on the agency.

How are the vegan meals?

I’d like to start by saying that I am just thankful I was served vegan meals after the whole confusing special meal request ordering fiasco (see above). But the meals left a lot to be desired.

I was on an overnight flight from London Heathrow to Mexico City, so I was given dinner and breakfast. Here is what I was served for each:

Dinner

For dinner, I was served a roll and some vegan margarine, two bowls full of fruit, and a hot dish. Thankfully, the roll wasn’t also gluten-free, which it usually is when ordering a vegan meal on an airline. Gluten-free vegan rolls tend to be dry and crumbly.

All of the fruit was pretty sour and I definitely couldn’t eat two bowls full of it. Considering we were flying out of London Heathrow, I would have expected something a bit more substantial for dessert. Some airlines have provided me with Alpro yoghurt pots.

The hot dish was a complete letdown. It was white rice, vegetables in tinned tomatoes, and a side of more vegetables that were sad and soggy. It would have been nice to have had a protein source, like lentils or tofu. Other airlines I’ve flown with have been able to provide me with that, at a minimum. If Aeromexico had added some protein, I could have forgiven them for serving me tasteless veg in uncooked tinned tomatoes.

Overall, I was amazed that a catering company in London was creating such basic meals when plant-based eating is so normal there.

Thankfully, Mexico itself has plenty of amazing tasty food – check out these vegan food spots in Mexico City.

Breakfast

Breakfast was a slight improvement from the dinner since it included protein – yay! But not so great for me, it came in the form of tinned baked beans, which I despise. I’d go as far as to say that I have a phobia of them. These were served with soggy mushrooms and solid baked potatoes. Thankfully, I was served another bread roll with vegan margarine and jam.

They came round with coffee and tea, but they had no milk alternatives to offer. That being said, I’m yet to go on an airline that does offer milk alternatives*. Which is shocking considering how big the lactose-free + vegan market is.

*Update: I was recently served both soya milk and oat milk on a British Airways flight to Santiago de Chile!