Three airlines bar JC Diwakar Reddy after airport row

Visakhapatnam / New Delhi: Indigo Airlines, Spicejet and Air India on Thursday barred  TD Anantapur MP J.C. Diwakar Reddy from taking their flights after he threw a temper tantrum at the Visakhapatnam airport on Thursday.

The MP had arrived late to board an IndiGo flight to Hyderabad. Denied a boarding pass, the MP allegedly damaged the property of the airline and abused the staff. Following a ruckus, the airline gave him a boarding pass.

The flight that was supposed to take off at 8.10 am was delayed by a few minutes. The doors that were closed were opened for the MP, a rarity.
Sources said civil aviation minister P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju was in the VVIP lounge then.

The airlines barring the MP follows the government proposing strict action against misbehaving airline passengers after Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad had slapped an Air India staffer a couple of months ago.

Speaking to the media in Hyderabad, the MP said. “I just put my hand around the shoulder of the airlines staff in a friendly manner but the media has shown something wrong and defamed me." He refused to comment on CCTV footage that showed Reddy pulling out a printer and abusing the airlines staff.

With the echoes of the misbehaviour of Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad with Air India personnel still to die away, TD Anantapur MP J.C. Diwakar Reddy threw a temper tantrum at the Visakhapatnam airport on Thursday.

Last year, he had reached the Gannavaram airport of Vijayawada 15 minutes before flight departure and was denied a boarding pass.  In a rage, he had allegedly barged into the Air India office and damaged the furniture.  

On Thursday, the MP reached the airport at 7.42 am, 28 minutes before Indigo 6E-608 was supposed to take off for Hyderabad. Normally when VIPs take a flight, their personal staff collect the boarding pass and inform the airline.
However, on Thursday the airline staff didn’t receive any information about his schedule.