Mumbai: In the latest incident of showing apathy towards differently-abled people, India’s flag carrier airline Air India did not allow a 70-year-old woman passenger on wheel chair to board the flight to New York from Mumbai via Delhi.
The incident took place on Saturday. The woman was later flown on the airline’s Delhi-London Heathrow flight to provide her a connecting flight for her destination, New York today, an Air India official said.
Air India attributed the denial of boarding to the woman passengers on its flight AI 101 (Mumbai-Delhi-New York) due to the cancellation of its same flight on Thursday.
The incident was brought out by her daughter, who tweeted, seeking airline’s help in this regard.
“Air India has offloaded my 70y mother from her US flight becoz of overbooking. She is wheelchair-bound and scared. Please help! @airindiain,” she said in her tweet.
“In fact, Air India flight which was to depart for New York via Delhi was cancelled due to some technical issue. As a result some of the passengers of that flight were accommodated in its Friday’s flight, leading to denial of boarding to many passengers including this woman,” airline sources said.
All the stranded passengers were given accommodation, the official said, adding, “the woman passenger was later flown to Delhi from where she boarded Air India flight AI 115 for London. The London staff was also informed of her arrival and told to provide her all help in getting a connecting Air India flight to New York from there.”
(With inputs from PTI)
