KOLKATA: A family from Kolkata that had travelled to Maldives earlier this month via Mumbai has alleged misbehaviour and harassment by airline ground staff prior to their departure for Malé. The family lodged a complaint with Sahar police station in Mumbai on Friday.
According to Kunal Diwan (37), who was travelling on Air India flight AI 267 from Mumbai to Malé on May 6 with mother Punam (60) and brother Ashwani (36), a ground staff at the AI check-in counter insisted that Punam furnish a Covid negative RT-PCR report to travel in the flight despite there being no such requirement by the government of Mauritius. All three travellers were fully vaccinated. But Kunal had mistakenly downloaded in his cellphone the certificate issued after his mother received the first dose. Though there is a provision to check the second dose using the registration ID mentioned in the certificate, the airline staff insisted that she undergo an RT-PCR test to board the flight.
Later though, the staff agreed to Punam undergoing RAT instead of RT-PCR before being allowed on the flight. On boarding, the family was in for another shock. While the seats of all three were next to each other, the flight attendant claimed Punam’s seat had been shifted to the last row owing to Covid norms.
“The holiday was planned at the eleventh hour when we suddenly decided to go to the Maldives to celebrate mom’s 60h birthday. We were all very excited about the trip. But the experience, first at the airport and then on the plane, was a killjoy,” said Ashwani.
“Air India has communicated with the passenger explaining this inadvertent oversight by one of the GHA staff since the updated information on Covid protocol for Maldives was not clear to one of our staff, ” the airline said.
