Suresh Prabhu Orders Probe Into British Airways Offloading Indian Family Over Their Crying Child

The incident allegedly took place on July 23.

Written by: India.com News Desk

Published: August 9, 2018, 6:12 PM IST

Share

Share Article

• Facebook
• WhatsApp
• X
• Email
• Telegram
• Linkedin

https://www.india.com/news/india/suresh-prabhu-orders-probe-into-british-airways-offloading-indian-family-over-their-crying-child-3214161/ Copy

New Delhi, Aug 9: Taking a serious note of the incident of an Indian family allegedly being offloaded from a British Airways flight because their child was crying, Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday ordered a probe.  According to the complaint filed by the family with Prabhu, the mother did manage to comfort the child before the plane took off but a cabin crew asked the child, allegedly in an intimidating manner, to sit down, scaring him more which led to some more crying. The aircraft then returned to the terminal and the officials offloaded the family and some other Indians sitting behind them.

The incident took place on the London-Berlin flight (BA 8495) on July 23 with an Indian Engineering Services officer and his family. In his complaint to Prabhu, the officer alleged “humiliation and racial behaviour” by the airline.

In a statement, the airline said,”We take claims like this extremely seriously and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. We have started a full investigation and are in direct contact with the customer.” Then, it added, “It is a safety requirement for all airlines that passengers are seated and have their seatbelt fastened for take-off. We are investigating the complaint and will liaise with our customer.”

It is a safety requirement for all airlines that passengers are seated and have their seatbelt fastened for take-off. We are investigating the complaint and will liaise with our customer: British Airways. https://t.co/5uw9Bs0n2S

— ANI (@ANI) August 9, 2018

Last year, the airline had come under criticism after a woman alleged that she and her daughter were left bleeding after being bitten by bugs. The woman, who had taken a flight to London, Heathrow, claimed that their seats had bed bugs that crawled out of their TV frames and food tray during the journey. Even though the woman raised the issue to cabin crew she, her fiance Eric Neilson and her 7-year-old daughter Molly Reid were not reseated. Heather Szilagyi, from Canada, said she told the cabin crew twice about the bugs.