Air India officials blame Canadian Pacific ticket agents

Air India officials blamed a ticket agent at the now-defunct Canadian Pacific airline as the main reason a bomb was never detected among the luggage of the doomed overseas flight.
Taking the stand for first time at the public inquiry into the 1985 terrorist bombing, two Air India officials laid out their explanation as to why the bag that likely carried the bomb – registered to someone named M. Singh – was allowed onto Air India Flight 182 without a passenger.
“Air India did not know of M. Singh. Air India had not approved the bag of M. Singh. M. Singh was not a passenger for Air India. He was a passenger for CP,” said T. N. Kumar, the general manager of legal affairs for Air India. Air India's top manager for Canada, Rajesh Chopra, also testified Thursday.
Air India's story all comes back to a lost argument at the Vancouver airport the day before the bomb went off.
The morning of June 22, a man identifying himself as Manjit Singh had called the CP reservation desk noting that he had a CP flight booked to Toronto. He wanted to know if he had been bumped up from the waiting list for a connecting flight to London on Air India 182. The CP employee replied that he was still on the waiting list and declined the caller's request to have his luggage checked through to London anyway.
An Indian man later appeared at the CP Air check-in desk carrying a ticket registered to M. Singh for a CP Air flight to Toronto. He insisted his baggage be routed onto Air India even though he was still on the waiting list.
“The agent ended up in an argument with the man, who became increasingly insistent that his baggage not be off-loaded in Toronto,” states a summary of facts provided by the Commission. “The agent finally relented and agreed to mark the luggage to be interlined through to Delhi.”
No M. Singh ever boarded the CP flight and no M. Singh was ever booked on Air India 182, a loophole Air India officials said yesterday explains how the bomb made it on board.
31/05/07 Bill Curry/Globe and Mail, Canada

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Categories: Air India Jun 2007, Foreign Jun 2007, Safety Jun 2007