Racism in the skies

Deboarding of passengers isn’t uncommon anymore with the infamous United Airlines incident and the Indigo incident still fresh in the public memory. Now, British Airlines has come under the scanner for removing an Indian family from their flight to Berlin from London, sparking a conversation on racism once again.

Here’s what happened: After the security announcement, the mother strapped the child onto his seat next to the window. But the child started crying so his mother tried to calm him down by holding him in her arms. This is when the flight steward interfered. “A male crew member of British Airways started shouting and scolding my three-year-old son to go to his seat. With this unusual behaviour of the male crew, my son felt harassed and started crying intensively,” tweeted A.P. Pathak, who was deplaned with his family. 

Trying to help the child, another Indian family sitting behind them offered a biscuit to the child. “The plane started moving on the runway and again the same crew member came and asked the child to keep quiet and threatened to throw him out of the window and offload the family members,” added Pathak, who was taken aback by the threats directed towards a toddler. Later, the family, along with the couple who offered the biscuits were deboarded at the terminal. After deboarding both families, British Airways provided a ticket to the other family but Pathak didn’t receive any such compensation.

Talking about basic airline policies Apeksha Gawande, a pilot with Jet Airways, says, “Disruptive passengers, especially those who are drunk, aren’t allowed to board as they can harm other passengers. But deboarding a crying baby isn’t fair and shouldn’t have happened.” 

Talking about her own experience with a crying baby on board, Apeksha says, “We recently travelled from Switzerland to Mumbai and there was a small child who was being really cranky. The parents had already informed us the child is scared of flying, so the crew had arranged for some toys to divert the child’s attention,” she adds.

Pathak claims that the crew members of British Airlines were rude and displayed racist behaviour. The incident seems to have raised many eyebrows with even celebrities extending solidarity. Actor Rishi Kapoor tweeted, “Don’t fly British Airways. We cannot be kicked around. Sad to hear about the Berlin child incident. I stopped flying BA after the cabin crew were rude and had the attitude not once but twice even after being a first-class passenger (sic).”

But not everyone is alright with crying children. “Recently, I was on a flight where a two-year-old kept bawling continuously throughout the night. While nobody complained, it did get annoying for the neighbouring passengers to sit through the journey,” says a flight attendant, on the condition of anonymity. 

Children’s ears get blocked on flights due to changes in atmospheric pressure. But Dr Mukesh Agrawal, Head of the Pediatrics Department at KEM Hospital, believes that wasn’t the case here. “The child was crying before take off and that was most probably the anxiety of being in a closed environment. And being seated away from his parents probably made him more anxious,” he says, adding that children also throw temper tantrums at times. 

In such cases, it is important to calm the child down. “The best way to deal with this is to pick up the child and explain the situation to him/her,” he adds.