Hyderabad: Seventy persons of a marriage party were offloaded from an IndiGo flight at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad on Friday night.
The flight, 6E-466, was scheduled to leave at 10 pm for Raipur but left in the early hours on Saturday with 127 other passengers. All the 70 passengers who were deplaned were provided food and sent on subsequent flights.
To queries by this correspondent, IndiGo media wing sent its reply by e-mail confirming that 70 passengers had been offloaded because of “unruly behaviour.”
Speaking for the airline, Ms Sakshi Batra said it was a group booking by 70 passengers on a single PNR number and some of them started making threatening remarks to the cabin crew. Efforts to pacify them failed.
Finally, the captain in consultation with airline security ground staff and cabin crew took a decision to offload them as other passengers were being put to inconvenience.
A statement from the airline said some male passengers from the group were standing in the aisle towards the rear of the aircraft, making it difficult for other passengers and crew members to walk past.
“The flight captain takes a decision to offload the passengers if he thinks they would create confusion in the air or sees a potential threat,” said Ms Batra.
It all started when some members of the 70-strong group boarded late and started shouting at the cabin crew when they found their seats occupied.
Shamshabad police said the group was returning to Raipur after a marriage on the city outskirts.
Shamshabad circle inspector T. Sudhakar told this correspondent that both the airline and offloaded passengers lodged complaints against each other.
“No case has been booked as they reached a compromise after the airline arranged food and seats on other flights for them to fly back to Raipur. The group complained that the aircraft took off with their baggage. No one has got in touch with us so far,” Mr Sudhakar said.
Mr Ashish Jain, one of the offloaded passengers alleged that the airline cabin crew and the captain had behaved “very rudely”.
“They threw down half of the baggage after offloading us and the flight took off with the remaining half of our baggage. Our mood after the three-day marriage celebration was ruined by the experience,” Mr Jain said.
He said the group had only asked the crew to allot them their seats. He said fortunately the bride, P. Anisha, and her husband, G. Arihant of Coimbatore, were not part of the group.
