IndiGo director blames sacked 'whistleblower' for manhandling passenger, 'regrets' incident
IndiGo
The airline wrote these details in their report to the government which was given to the ministry of civil aviation on Wednesday.?
In a report to the civil aviation ministry, IndiGo directorAditya Ghoshblamedthe sacked "whistleblower" for manhandling the passenger after a verbal altercation.
The video of the incident which had occurred on October 15 had gone viral on Tuesday after it emerged a passenger, Rajiv Katyal, being manhandled by the IndiGo staff at Delhi's IGI airport.
Aditya Ghosh, mentioned in the report to the government that the staff was trying to prevent the passengers and was only 'doing itsjob'.
"The ex-employee, Montu Kalra who was terminated and is claiming to be the 'whistleblower', is the one you can hear shouting in the video and instructing the other two colleagues, who were junior to him, to prevent the customer from boarding the bus and to hold him back at the ramp itself."
Incident at Delhi Airport - Report (Others)
“At the very outset, let me start off by acknowledging that we were at fault and we not only apologise for this regrettable incident, we have also taken action. As a responsible organisation, we recognize that we have a high degree of duty towards our customers. Treating our customers with respect is core to what we do. I personally called and apologised to Mr. Katyal (the customer) 3 weeks ago,” IndiGo airline’s president said in the report.
Giving the airline's side of the story, Ghosh said:"When our staff Juby Thomas saw Mr Katyal inadvertently moving towards the catering high-lift (which was attached to the aircraft), Thomas started waving frantically from a distance to ask Mr Katyal to move away with the sole intention of preventing any accident. Thomas started shouting to be heard by the passenger due to the high aircraft noise."
"It is possible that due to the very noisy ramp area, Mr Katyal could not hear Juby Thomas properly and ... may have felt Thomas was being rude. The reality is that Juby Thomas was only trying to ensure the safety of Mr Katyal and prevent an accident," the letter said.
Representative Photo (Others)
Ghosh further mentioned how Katyal refused to listen to Thomas and spoke in "inappropriate"language, telling him 'to do his own work', which was "the irony, as he was indeed doing his own work and enduring safety of the passengers" Ghosh said in his letter.
The letterthen extensively broke down each scenario and explained how the event unfolded blow-by-blow.
Ghosh accepted that the incident was 'extremely regrettable' and the situation could have been 'handled differently'.
"Whatever may have been the provocation, whether verbal or physical abuse, we could have tried to display more restraint," he said.
He then informed that he apologised to MrKatyal "the very same night"and assured that they will "try harder".
The employees have since been suspended.