United Airlines is facing a lawsuit from a German passenger who claims he was seriously injured when he accidentally swallowed a piece of metal which was hiding in his inflight meal.
Bastian Bromse filed the lawsuit against the Chicago-based airline in an Illinois district court late last month, claiming damages for personal injury under Article 17 of the Montreal Convention.
The Montreal Convention, or ‘Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air’ as it is officially known, was signed in May 1999 and makes airlines liable for injuries sustained by passengers during an international flight.
In most cases, airlines will be held liable for a passenger injury unless they can prove that it caused by the passenger’s own negligence or was the result of something that another passenger did.
The maximum compensation that a plaintiff can be awarded under Article 17 of the Montreal Convention is equivalent to around $170,000.
According to recently filed court documents, Bromse was flying with United Airlines from Washington Dulles to Berlin on May 27, 2023, on flight UA234, which departed at around 5:45 pm for the eight-hour transatlantic crossing.
During the meal service, Bromse “sustained serious injuries to the inside of his throat when he swallowed a piece of wire hidden inside his airline-provided meal”.
The wire “became lodged in his throat, and he was required to undergo a medical procedure to have the metal removed, which caused severe discomfort and pain”.
Bromse says his injuries were caused by an “unexpected or unusual event” which was not his fault and not something that anyone could ordinarily expect to happen during a flight.
United Airlines has declined to comment because litigation is pending but this isn’t the first lawsuit that the carrier has faced this year because of its inflight catering.
In February, the family of a six-year-old girl sued United after the child was left “scarred and disfigured” when a hot meal fell in her lap during a 12-hour flight from Tel Aviv to Newark.
The July 2022 incident was caused, the family claimed, by a defective bi-fold tray table which couldn’t properly hold the meal in place because it slanted downwaerds. As a result of that defect, the meal slid off the tray and into the girl’s lap.
The lawsuit further alleged that the flight attendants did little to help the injured girl because the necessary medical supplies weren’t available onboard.
In May, another United Airlines passenger claimed they found a maggot in their inflight meal during a service from Sydney, Australia, to Los Angeles. The slimy lava, it is claimed, was only discovered after the passenger had already taken several bites out of their pasta dish.
Surprisingly, the passenger was pretty understanding about the situation and said the flight attendants were “really nice” but that there very little they could do to make for the discovery.
In the end, United Airlines did, however, credit the passenger with 7,500 MileagePlus frequent flyers miles and a week after the flight, the airline also posted a $150 flight credit into their account.
A couple of months ago, a passenger onboard an Air India flight from Bengaluru to San Francisco discovered what appeared to be a blade in his inflight meal and he only found the sharp metal object after he had already taken a bite into it.
Thankfully, the passenger wasn’t injured in this case. The airline said that the blade likely came from a vegetable processing machine at a third-party catering facility.
