Discrimination charge: travel agents write to Air France

Mumbai: A day after 53 Indians spent an entire night in the basement immigration hall of Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has written a letter to Air France seeking an explanation from the carrier.
“I had one of my lady passengers who witnessed racial discrimination recently on a flight from New York,” said Vasuki Sundaram, secretary of TAFI’s western chapter. “It was one of those relatively empty flights and the airhostess was asking all passengers whether they would prefer to shift to seats which had more leg room.
While she asked all the ‘whites’ for their preference, she conveniently ignored this lady. Only when the lady raised a hue and cry that she had paid as much as the others for the tickets did the airhostess ask her,” added Sundaram.
“Earlier Indians used to be scared to speak out. I’ve had this experience on a flight when the airhostess was smiling at everybody but stopped smiling when she looked at me,” said Sundaram.
“Therefore when we read about yesterday’s incident, we wrote a letter to the carrier seeking an explanation. It looks like a case of racial discrimination,” she added.
14/05/09 Shashank Shekhar/Indian Express

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Categories: Foreign May 2009