A woman passenger slapped an Air India duty manager at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on Tuesday morning after being denied to board the plane for reporting late. The airline official too slapped the passenger back.
The incident, according to PTI report, took place after the Ahmedabad-bound woman passenger had an altercation with the official.
An Air India spokesperson said, “A lady passenger was told by a counter staff that she will not be able to check-in because she was late for the flight. This led to an argument and the staff directed her to the duty manager who was also a lady and there was an argument and an altercation.”
Woman passenger slapped Air India staff member at Delhi's IGI Airport over issue of ticket. The passenger travelling from Delhi to Ahmedabad had reported late at the counter pic.twitter.com/qfo4mKyeix
— ANI (@ANI) November 28, 2017
DCP, Airport, Sanjay Bhatia said that the passenger allegedly slapped the duty manager. The duty manager also hit back.
“Arguments started between the passenger and Air India lady staff and the passenger slapped her. Lady staff in retaliation also slapped her,” Bhatia said.
The passenger later called the police and went to the police station. Both the passenger and the Air India staff later apologised to each other and the issue was amicably resolved, the spokesperson added.
The number of altercations involving passengers and airline staff has increased in India in the recent past. This is after the civil aviation ministry rolled out new rules to deal with unruly passengers including barring them from flying in future. The new rules were formulated in the wake of a Shiv Sena MP misbehaving with Air India staff after he was being denied a business class even though he had ticket for economy class.
Not so long ago, an IndiGo staff was seen thrashing an elderly passengers after he allegedly used abusive words. The video of IndiGo staff roughing up its own passenger at the tarmac had gone viral.