Jet apologizes to Jindal Saw chief over harassment

New Delhi: She may be fit enough to run a $1 billion business empire, but Jet Airways found the wheel chair-ridden Jindal family scion Sminu so unsafe to fly that it asked her recently to either sign an indemnity bond or deplane.
The incident — which again highlights airlines' apathetic attitude towards physically-challenged passengers — happened when 34-year-old Sminu Jindal, who heads Jindal Saw, was travelling from Delhi to Bangkok on Christmas with her husband Indresh Batra on Jet's business class.
"I have been travelling all over the world but for the first time an airline asked me to sign a bond saying that I would not hold them responsible for any harm to me during the flight before being allowed to fly. I threw a fit and tore the bond they were waving at me. I told them unless they make every heart patient and pregnant woman to sign a similar thing, I refused to be treated differently," Jindal said. She firmly told the airline that she was of a firm mind and the only problem was that she could not stand on her own as a road accident at the age of 11 left her paraplegic.
On its part, Jet Airways accepted its mistake and apologised to Jindal.
Jindal's problem did not end there. On the Delhi-Bangkok and return sector flight on January 1, she said the airline did not provide any aisle chair (a small wheelchair that can be used inside the aircraft). "My husband had to drag me to the seat on the flight. The issue is not about me being treated like this, but how airlines still refuse to provide basic assistance and dignity to physically-challenged passengers," she said.
04/01/08 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Foreign Jan 2008, Jet Airways Jan 2008