Mumbai: It would appear that all the Indian airlines are vying with each other to enter the Hall of Shame.
Close on the heels of the shameful incident on February 19, 2012 where Spice Jet offloaded a passenger, Jeeja Ghosh, because she suffered from cerebral palsy, comes another incident, this time involving Indigo Airlines. Tony Kurian, 22, a visually impaired student of the development studies programme at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, has been repeatedly denied tickets by Indigo because of his impairment, and his tale of woe goes back to October 2011.
“I first tried to book tickets on October 17, 2011 for a flight to Cochin on June 22, 2012. I was refused a ticket. The airline told me that ‘a blind passenger may not avail of their services unless accompanied by an escort or a guide dog.’ I tried to point out thatthis was in violation of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) guidelines, but they were adamant about what they called their airline policy,” says a bitter Kurian.
Then, following the uproar over the ill-treatment meted out to Jeeja Ghosh in Kolkata by SpiceJet, Kurian tried again on February 23. “I was hopeful that the Kolkata incident and the outrage it generated would have cured Indigo of such policies, but I was humiliated again, and a ticket was refused to me on the very same grounds.”
After DNA’s conversation with the Indigo spokesperson, Indigo president Aditya Ghosh wrote to Kurian, apologising for the incident.
26/02/12 Daily News & Analysis
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Close on the heels of the shameful incident on February 19, 2012 where Spice Jet offloaded a passenger, Jeeja Ghosh, because she suffered from cerebral palsy, comes another incident, this time involving Indigo Airlines. Tony Kurian, 22, a visually impaired student of the development studies programme at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, has been repeatedly denied tickets by Indigo because of his impairment, and his tale of woe goes back to October 2011.
“I first tried to book tickets on October 17, 2011 for a flight to Cochin on June 22, 2012. I was refused a ticket. The airline told me that ‘a blind passenger may not avail of their services unless accompanied by an escort or a guide dog.’ I tried to point out thatthis was in violation of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) guidelines, but they were adamant about what they called their airline policy,” says a bitter Kurian.
Then, following the uproar over the ill-treatment meted out to Jeeja Ghosh in Kolkata by SpiceJet, Kurian tried again on February 23. “I was hopeful that the Kolkata incident and the outrage it generated would have cured Indigo of such policies, but I was humiliated again, and a ticket was refused to me on the very same grounds.”
After DNA’s conversation with the Indigo spokesperson, Indigo president Aditya Ghosh wrote to Kurian, apologising for the incident.
26/02/12 Daily News & Analysis
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