As many as 70 passengers who had booked group tickets to Raipur from here on an Indigo flight (6E-466) were offloaded at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) at Shamshabad on Friday night on charges of “unruly behaviour”.
The passengers, however, claimed that they were harassed by the flight crew. The airliner, in a statement, said that passengers who were on their way to attend a marriage were offloaded on the grounds of unruly behaviour and an FIR has been lodged with the airport police in this regard.
The airline explained that trouble started when the passengers, who were a group, tried to exchange seats in the non-stop flight to Raipur. However, some of the passengers had an altercation with cabin crew as they were trying to move in the aisle blocked by the fliers.
Confirming the incident, RGIA authorities said the cabin crew then informed the cockpit who in turn called the ground staff and sought help to manage the agitated fliers as the departure of the flight was already delayed. “At this stage, we decided to offload the entire group ,” they said.
The flight which was supposed to depart from Hyderabad by 6:35 pm, got delayed by two hours. Following that, the airline lodged a complaint with the airport police against the passengers.
Complaint by airline
In its complaint, the airline said that some of the male passengers behaved unruly after the cabin crew urged them to sit and fasten seat belts so that the flight can get ready to take off. “They began to brush their luggage against one of the crew members,” the complaint says.
The ground crew, which arrived to cool the tempers of the passengers, failed to do so following which they were asked to disembark.
The airline also said that the offloaded passengers were provided with dinner and were accommodated in another flight that left for Raipur on Saturday. Medical help was also provided to the offloaded passengers, they said. Airport authorities also said that the passengers have agreed to withdraw their complaint against the airliner.
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