Suffering from spinal muscular atrophy, a physical condition that has rendered him immobile, Pratyush Nalam never faced too many hardships, thanks to his battery-operated wheelchair.
Till Sunday happened. The 23-year-old techie was left helpless and hapless upon landing at the John F Kennedy International Airport in New York after he discovered that his motorised travel aid had been held back by Delhi airport's security staff without his knowledge.
Nalam, an IIT-Bombay graduate who reached the US to join Microsoft in Seattle where he has landed a job after completing MS in computer science from Columbia University, flew from Chennai to New York via Delhi on two Air India flights — AI-43 and AI 101.
While the wheelchair made it to the flight from Chennai to Delhi (AI-43), it was surprisingly not loaded on to the aircraft (AI 101) from Delhi to New York.
The security personnel at the airport did not allow the wheelchair on the flight, ostensibly because the batteries had not been taken out.
Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, an enraged Nalam said, "No, you simply cannot leave behind a passenger's motorised wheelchair halfway across the world just because you 'think' the batteries haven't been disconnected. The least you could do was to contact the passenger before the flight took off."
Nalam said that the motorised wheelchair was his sole support for moving independently.
"It is more than legs for me. Do you leave behind your aircraft's landing gear because it didn't clear security?" he asked.
14/02/17 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror/The Times Of India
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Till Sunday happened. The 23-year-old techie was left helpless and hapless upon landing at the John F Kennedy International Airport in New York after he discovered that his motorised travel aid had been held back by Delhi airport's security staff without his knowledge.
Nalam, an IIT-Bombay graduate who reached the US to join Microsoft in Seattle where he has landed a job after completing MS in computer science from Columbia University, flew from Chennai to New York via Delhi on two Air India flights — AI-43 and AI 101.
While the wheelchair made it to the flight from Chennai to Delhi (AI-43), it was surprisingly not loaded on to the aircraft (AI 101) from Delhi to New York.
The security personnel at the airport did not allow the wheelchair on the flight, ostensibly because the batteries had not been taken out.
Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, an enraged Nalam said, "No, you simply cannot leave behind a passenger's motorised wheelchair halfway across the world just because you 'think' the batteries haven't been disconnected. The least you could do was to contact the passenger before the flight took off."
Nalam said that the motorised wheelchair was his sole support for moving independently.
"It is more than legs for me. Do you leave behind your aircraft's landing gear because it didn't clear security?" he asked.
14/02/17 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror/The Times Of India
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