Award-winning Ophthalmologist highlights airline mismanagement at Kolkata airport

Kolkata: Dr Bharti Kashyap, a Ranchi-based ophthalmologist and recipient of the prestigious 'Nari Shakti Puraskar' in 2017 has alleged mistreatment by the staff of a low-cost airline at Kolkata airport after her flight was cancelled due to "bad weather."

According to Dr Bharti Kashyap, a Ranchi-based ophthalmologist, she was travelling from the Jharkhand capital to Bagdogra in West Bengal with a stopover at Kolkata.

“After landing in Kolkata at 10.45 am, after an hour’s delay, I found out that the flight to Bagdogra was cancelled,” Kashyap told PTI over phone.

She alleged that the airline staff could not accommodate her in the airline’s evening flight to Bagdogra, and kept her along with some other passengers, waiting for a long time.

The connecting flight to Bagdogra from Kolkata was at 12.45 pm which the airline cancelled for the day.

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According to the PTI report, she alleged, “They did not give us any refreshments for a long time. Some staff members of the airline kept telling us that the airline will provide lunch and later it was provided to us around 4 pm.”

She also said that after accommodating her on a flight on Wednesday, the airline offered her to stay in a dormitory, which she refused.

“I am 57 and travelling alone. How can I stay in a dormitory with others?” asked the passenger who received the ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar’ from then President Ram Nath Kovind in 2017.

She also said that her brother who was travelling to Bagdogra from Mumbai by the same airline had no problem reaching there.

“While we were told that our flight was cancelled due to bad weather there, the plane in which my brother was travelling to the same destination could land there,” she said.

Meanwhile, IndiGo sources at the airport said that one flight, which had left from Kolkata at 7.40 am was already diverted due to bad weather at Bagdogra.

The next flight to Bagdogra which was scheduled to depart from Kolkata at 12.45 pm had to be cancelled due to bad weather there, an employee said.

Kashyap was scheduled to be on that flight.

“We are doing our best to help the stranded passengers. Right now we cannot give them hotel accommodation for the night since all hotel rooms are booked due to the ongoing festive season,” the employee said.

Sometime later, the airline staff managed to give the doctor a room and five others were put up in a dormitory at the airport.

“I was stranded at the airport for six hours,” Kashyap said after getting the accommodation for the night.

“But the hotel says it will not serve tea and dinner unless the airline tells them to do so,” she alleged.

The airline, however, did not come up with any statement on the matter till the last reports came in.

Dr Bharti Kashyap has been working towards bringing a change in the lives of thousands of people across Jharkhand.

Through the ‘Eye Donation awareness campaign’ and ‘Vision for Young Rural Jharkhand campaign’ she has been working towards bringing the less privileged children and youth out of darkness by organising eye-checkup-camps in the far-off areas of Jharkhand, most of which are heavily Naxal infested.

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