Chennai: A 68-year-old wheelchair bound woman from the city, who sufferred a harrowing detention of nearly 12 hours at the Abu Dhabi International Airport due to an error on the part of Etihad Airways, a UAE-based air carrier, was awarded a compensation of `3 lakh by the consumer forum.
The senior citizen, Arumugam Kanthimathiammal, a resident of Adyar, returning from Chicago on July 24, 2010 after visiting her son’s family, was disembarked from a connecting flight at Abu Dhabi as her name was incorrect in the boarding pass issued in Chicago.
For no fault of hers, she had to be in detention in an unknown land, with no knowledge of the local language or any friends to help and was even deprived of her medicines. The airline staff suspected to the old woman be travelling on forged identity and handed her over to the airport staff who in turn detained her in a hotel room at the airport.
Underlining the mental agony that Kanthimathiammal had gone through in a foreign land without knowing either English or Urdu or even an alternative dress and medicines, the Chennai South District Consumer Grievances Redressal Forum directed the Etihad Airways to pay compensation as carelessness of its staff was responsible for the sequence of the events.
11/06/14 J Santhosh/New Indian Express
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The senior citizen, Arumugam Kanthimathiammal, a resident of Adyar, returning from Chicago on July 24, 2010 after visiting her son’s family, was disembarked from a connecting flight at Abu Dhabi as her name was incorrect in the boarding pass issued in Chicago.
For no fault of hers, she had to be in detention in an unknown land, with no knowledge of the local language or any friends to help and was even deprived of her medicines. The airline staff suspected to the old woman be travelling on forged identity and handed her over to the airport staff who in turn detained her in a hotel room at the airport.
Underlining the mental agony that Kanthimathiammal had gone through in a foreign land without knowing either English or Urdu or even an alternative dress and medicines, the Chennai South District Consumer Grievances Redressal Forum directed the Etihad Airways to pay compensation as carelessness of its staff was responsible for the sequence of the events.
11/06/14 J Santhosh/New Indian Express
