A para athlete yesterday alleged that she was "ill-treated" by the crew of a private airlines and "forcefully offloaded", even as the airlines refuted the claims
Madhu Bagri
A para athlete yesterday alleged that she was "ill-treated" by the crew of a private airlines and "forcefully offloaded", even as the airlines refuted the claims.
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Madhu Bagri, a wheelchair tennis player, said that she had booked herself on a SpiceJet flight from Tirupati to Hyderabad, which was scheduled to take off at 8.25 am. But she was later evicted from the aircraft. "As the aisle was not wide enough for the wheelchair, I was asked to walk or crawl to reach my seat in the third row. When I asked the crew to accommodate me in the front row, they told me that it was an emergency seat and that differently-abled people were barred from occupying it," Bagri said.
The airlines denied any manhandling of the sports person. "On reaching the aircraft, the passenger insisted on having the front row seat. All front row seats are emergency exit rows and hence, passengers with any kind of disability are not allowed to sit on these seats," a SpiceJet spokesperson said.
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