An Instagram photo depicting a handwritten menu for in-flight meals on a Garuda Indonesia flight from Sydney, Australia, to Denpasar in Bali has caused a stir on social media and prompted some workers of the national flag carrier to seek legal recourse.

YouTube content creator Rius Vernandes posted a photo of a menu written on a piece of paper in his now-invisible Instagram Story when he was on a business class flight back to Denpasar on Saturday evening.

“This is the menu handed out to business-class passengers of a Garuda Indonesia flight from Sydney to Denpasar. [They told me] the menu was still being printed,” he wrote in the caption of his now-invisible Instagram story, alongside a facepalm emoji.

Responding to the story, Garuda Indonesia spokesman M. Ikhsan Rosan denied that the handwritten text was the airline’s official in-flight menu for the business class.

“It was not a menu card. What’s on the photo that has since gone viral is a crew member’s personal handwritten note,” Ikhsan said on Sunday, as quoted by kompas.com.

“The question is, why would [Rius] share a photo of the written piece as if it were an official menu?” he said, adding that the national flag carrier had clarified the matter and provided official printed menus in line with business class standards.

Rius responded again by uploading a video on his YouTube channel. Rius said the handwritten menu had caught his attention when a flight attendant handed it to a passenger sitting in front of him.

“I was confused why they would hand out a handwritten menu. It was not a personal list that belonged to the flight attendant; they handed out the handwritten note to every passenger,” he explains in the video, adding he held the menu in his hands when the flight attendant finally got to his seat.

The video, which has garnered more than 220,000 views at the time of writing, shows the flight attendant taking orders from Rius and his partner while apologizing for the “bad handwriting”.

He went on to say in the video that he never intended to make fun of the airline by showing footage and pictures of the handwritten menu. It was customary for his flight review videos to include shots of the menu, he said.

To complicate matters, Rius and his partner Elwiyana Monica were summoned by the police for questioning on Wednesday based on a report submitted by members of Garuda Indonesia’s labor union.

“Elwi and I were summoned by the police regarding this issue. We were reported for defamation. I never meant to defame anyone,” Rius wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday.

Soekarno-Hatta International Airport Police chief Sr. Comr. Adj. Victor Togi Tambunan confirmed the summons. “Yes, we called [Rius and Elwi] in for further questioning regarding the issue with Garuda Indonesia on Wednesday,” Victor told The Jakarta Post.

Garuda Indonesia’s Ikhsan could not be reached for comment at the time of writing.

In an official statement dated July 14 made available to the press, Garuda Indonesia informed its crew members to prohibit passengers and fellow crew members from taking pictures or recording videos during a flight.

Furthermore, the airline instructed crew members to speak in an “assertive” tone when telling passengers not to record anything on the flight.

The airline also noted it would impose sanctions for any violation of its rules.

Garuda Indonesia clarified in a statement on Tuesday that the previous statement was originally intended as an internal announcement for its employees and was not supposed to be published.

Popular

Great Barrier Reef hit by record bleaching

Govt to undo latest curbs on personal imports

Middle East on edge as Israel and Iran trade threats