Cancer patient on New York-bound flight seeks help with hand bag, offloaded; DGCA probe on

A female cancer patient, who recently underwent a surgery, was allegedly offloaded from a New York-bound flight of American Airlines at Delhi airport after she sought assistance from a flight attendant to keep her hand-bag in overhead cabin.

The incident was reported on January 30, and it came to light after the United States-based traveller, identified as Meenakshi Sengupta, lodged a complaint against the flight attendant accusing them of refusing to help her put the handbag weighing more than 5 pounds in the overhead cabin as she was unable to do so because of weak limbs.

In her complaint to the Delhi Police and the Civil Air, Meenakshi Sengupta said that she had also requested for wheelchair assistance to her seat, “I was also wearing a brace which was visible to everyone and they would know that I have some discomfort.