To Board or Not to Board? The Indigo Imbroglio

This is truly a case where Fifty-Fifty is a valid verdict. The question is whether an airline should hold up nearly 150 passengers for one passenger. But then the bigger question is what if the one passenger in question is a handicapped or specially-abled child? What should take precedence? Punctuality? Or compassion?

- Sandeep Goyal

Something exactly like this happened in the first week of May when a specially-abled child (some reports say adolescent) was barred at Ranchi airport from boarding a flight as he was in “a state of panic”. As the boy was prohibited from boarding the airline’s Ranchi-Hyderabad flight on Saturday, his parents – who were with him – also decided to not enter the plane.

The whole incident came to light when a passenger, one Manisha Gupta, detailed out the incident on LinkedIn.

She reported that on Saturday, 7 May, at the Ranchi airport, an adolescent with special needs, reported for check-in with his family but he was apparently quite distraught. “The exhaustion of the drive to the airport and then the stress of security check has sent him into the throes of hunger, thirst, anxiety and confusion. His parents obviously knew how to handle his meltdown – with patience, cajoling, stern-ness, many hugs,” she mentioned in the post. By the time the boarding began, the child had been fed and given his medicines. The hope obviously was that he would calm down but he continued to be aggressive and difficult.

Manisha Gupta’s post continues, “Then we witnessed the full display of brute authority and power. The IndiGo (InterGlobe Aviation Ltd) staff declared that the child would not be allowed to take the flight because he was a risk to other passengers,” she writes. “The Indigo manager also said something on lines of ‘behaviours such as this, and that of drunk passengers, deems them unfit to travel’,” she adds.