New Delhi:
Air India staff resisted pressure from three Members of Parliament and refused to waive the charges for 193 kg of excess baggage being carried by them from Guwahati to Delhi. The MPs were forced to make payments and carry the goods in cargo instead.
Three Lok Sabha MPs - Uttar Pradesh Congress chief and Faizabad MP Nirmal Khatri, Congress MP from Almora Pradeep Tamta and BJP MP from Meerut Rajendra Agrawal - were returning from Guwahati in Air India's flight AI 9612 on Tuesday, airline sources said.
They wanted to check-in together with 268 kg of baggage, though airline policy says an economy class passenger is allowed to carry only 25 kg of checked-in luggage.
The MPs, who are members of Parliament's Rajbhasha panel and had gone to Guwahati for an official meeting, wanted the airline's station manager to waive off the excess baggage charges.
But the airline officials expressed inability citing Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh's August directive prohibiting any waiver on excess baggage allowance to VVIPs, ministers and bureaucrats, the sources said.
The MPs were asked to book the excess baggage in cargo after paying a fee, to which they agreed and the baggage came to Delhi in another flight, they said.