In a scary replay of the infamous incident that happened on United Airlines where a passenger was horrifyingly assaulted, a video surfaced today showing an IndiGo groundstaff assaulting a male passenger on the tarmac.
When groundstaff assaulted passengers
As earlier stated, there is also a video of a doctor passenger being assaulted on a United Airlines flight earlier this year and forcibly removed from his seat. The reason for the incident?
Overbooking on flights happens all the time. Airlines boost their profit margins by overselling, betting against the number of passengers who will miss their flights.
In this case, the problem arose because United Airlines fly four members of staff, decided at the last minute, to a connection point and needed to bump four passengers to make way for them.
While 3 of the passengers that were selected, agreed after some discussion, Dr.David Dao refused, saying he had patients to see in the morning. It resulted in him being assaulted which resulted in a concussion, a broken nose and the loss of two teeth. To cap it all, he was removed from the flight.
Is IndiGo an airline or a fight club?
Even though this incident with IndiGo happened on the 15th of October, 2017, the video has only just surfaced. It has thrown everyone into a tailspin and created a maelstrom of reactions and feelings.
In the video, a passenger, Rajiv Katiyal can be seen as having an argument over something with the airline staff after deboarding the plane. As the argument intensifies, he is seen being stopped from entering a coach, then pulled back by ground staff. Another airline employee is seen restraining the traveler. The argument soon turns into a fight and the airline staff is seen pushing the passenger to the ground and then restraining and throttling him. The passenger fights back and falls to the ground in the melee.
Sources say that Katiyal was taken to the police station and even threatened.
The airline said the passenger was abusive and was reported to the police.
What’s more shocking is the fact that the airline employee, Montu Kalra, who shot the video and reported the matter to the airline HR was sacked, while the men who assaulted the passenger were only warned.
Later, the airline tweeted an apology to the passenger and assured that the erring employees who assaulted him had been terminated.
It could happen in Goa too
Now, Goa is a destination that also sees hundreds of passengers fly in and out every day. And let’s face it, a lot of them may be disgruntled but one does not attack passengers. Not that what the passenger allegedly did by abusing the groundstaff was right either. This has now put the airline in a very bad light and who’s to say it wouldn’t and couldn’t happen at the Dabolim International airport to anyone of us?
In India, the aviation ministry unveiled rules for a no-fly list for unruly passengers that imposed a ban on flying from three months a lifetime. However, the rules do not deal with misconduct by airline staff.
Source – TimesNowNews and OutlookIndia
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