BENGALURU: Just four days ago, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had presented statistics in the Lok Sabha to show that the incidence misbehaviour of airlines’ staff with passengers decreased over the years. In an irony of sorts, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday suspended the licence of an IndiGo pilot for three months for “intimidating and threatening” two women passengers for requesting a wheelchair at Bengaluru airport.
Former journalist Supriya Unni and her mother, a 75-year-old diabetic patient, had a nightmarish experience at the hands of Captain Jayakrishna at the airport on January 13 when they requested a wheelchair pre-booked with their ticket for their Chennai-Bengaluru flight. Unni told TNIE that the captain pilot was rude to them, humiliated them and threatened to detain and send them to jail.The DGCA said in a statement it issued a show cause notice to the PIC (Pilot in Command).
It said, “It has been established that the PIC’s attitude toward the wheelchair-bound senior citizen passenger was intimidating, threatening and lacking in compassion. His actions led to avoidable detention of the wheelchair-bound passenger.”
