A child with special needs wasn't allowed to board an IndiGo flight
Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya M Scindia has said a team of the country's aviation regulator DGCA will visit Ranchi and Hyderabad to look into the incident of IndiGo staff not allowing a child with special needs to board a flight last week.
After the incident was widely reported, Mr Scindia had tweeted he would personally investigate the matter and take action.
Following up on the assurance, the minister today tweeted, "Keeping the sensitive nature of the incident in mind, we have decided to conduct a fact-finding enquiry by a 3-member team under the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation). They will visit Ranchi and Hyderabad (place of stay of the family), and collect appropriate evidence within one week from today."
Mr Scindia in a stern warning earlier had said there was zero-tolerance towards "such behaviour". "No human being should have to go through this. Investigating the matter by myself, post which appropriate action will be taken," the minister had said.
Last week, IndiGo did not allow a child with special needs to board a flight with his family at the Ranchi airport. The airline had claimed the child posed a threat to other passengers' safety.
Manisha Gupta, a fellow passenger and a witness to the scene, narrated the incident on a Facebook post, saying a group of doctors travelling on the same flight offered to provide full support to the child and his parents if any health episode were to occur mid-air, and other passengers rallied around the family, yet the IndiGo staff did not allow the family to board.
IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta yesterday told NDTV the same child has flown with them over 50 times in the past few years. Expressing regret over the incident, the CEO offered to buy an electric wheelchair for the child with special needs, adding that the airline staff took the best possible decision under difficult circumstances.
"We always tell employees flight safety is Number 1. If you are in doubt, please always err on the side of flight safety. So how do we make sure that flight safety is not just lip service but is actually working. One is training. The second thing is empowerment. We don't try to second guess the captain's, flight attendant or flight manager's decision," Mr Dutta told NDTV.