British Airways crew deplanes Indian family as son was ‘crying’

An Indian family has made serious allegations of high-handed behaviour by the crew of British Airways (BA). The Indian family accused the British Airways crew of meting out callous treatment towards their three-year old child. At the time of take-off, the child got scared and started crying. His mother tried to pacify him, but the crew members intervened and scolded the child. They also asked the parents to ‘shut their child up’ which scared the child even more and he started wailing.
This led to an altercation between the crew and the Indian family, after which the pilot took the plane back to the terminal and some of the Indians including the family were deplaned. This incident happened on British Airways’ London-Berlin (BA 8495) flight on July 23. The family has complained to Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu about their harrowing experience on the British Airways flight.
The officials at British Airways have launched an official enquiry in the matter and have taken a serious note of this entire situation. BA has said that they take such allegations very seriously. The British Airways have released a statement saying, “There will be no tolerance of any kind of discrimination. We are in touch with the customer to hear their grievances.”
The father of the child spoke to the media. He said, “After the announcement of fastening the seat-belt, my wife tried putting a seat belt on my three-year-old son sitting on a separate seat, but my son, who was upset with the seat belt started crying. My wife was trying to calm my son. A male crew member came and scolded him and told him to ‘shut up’. My son got scared because of his tone and he started crying even more.
He further added, “An Indian family sitting behind us tried to pacify our child by offering him biscuits. However, when he still didn’t stop crying a crew member came and threatened him saying he would throw him out of the window, if he doesn’t keep quiet.”
An official reply from Suresh Prabhu and the ministry of civil aviation is awaited.