Plane passenger served chicken tikka that’s a week out of date – and he ate it without realising

JET2 passenger Paul Wilkinson was stunned to discover the meal he was served during his flight was out of date by a week.

While travelling from Tenerife to London Stansted on January 13, he ordered the chicken tikka meal option.

The meal, which costs £7.50, consists of chicken tikka masala, brown rice, poppadoms and dips, had a best before date of January 5 on the box.

However, Paul failed to notice this before he ate the entire meal during the flight.

Sharing a photo of the meal on , Paul said: "Just come of a flight from Tenerife to Stansted and @jet2tweets paid for this for my food.. chicken tikka. Beware folks-check the dates in this companies food (sic)."

In the picture, the date could clearly be seen, along with the batch date of "ED 43 18".

A Jet2 spokesperson told Sun Online Travel: "We would like to apologise to Paul, and we are addressing this with the supplier.

"Although the Best Before Date had slightly expired, this does not affect the safety of the product but may affect the quality.

"We will, of course, be refunding Paul if he was not happy with his in-flight meal."

While is OK to eat food after the best before date, as this is about the quality of the food, not the safety according to the Food Standards Agency, the use by date should be followed.

Some foods should not be eaten after the use by date, especially meat and fish.

Sun Online Travel recently reported that an easyJet passenger found his meal was more than ten years out of date while travelling back to the UK.

His toasted cheese sandwich packaging had a date of ";16-June-07" on the back, suggesting the best before was in 2007.

EasyJet confirmed it was a manual printing error and was not out of date, therefore safe to consume.