Woman passenger harassed by AirAsia crew at Bengaluru Airport

The woman, an employee with a private bank alleged in her police complaint that she was coming to Bengaluru from Ranchi on November 3 when the crew tried to harass her.

A member of ground staff walks under the wing of an AirAsia plane. (File | Reuters)

BENGALURU: In yet another incident of airline harassment, three men staff, including a male steward of AirAsia, have been accused of misbehaving with a woman passenger at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru on November 3.

A case has been filed with Sadashivanagar police.

The complaint comes close on the heels of Indigo airlines staff assaulting a passenger in New Delhi.

The woman, an employee with a private bank alleged in her police complaint that she was coming to Bengaluru from Ranchi on November 3. After boarding, she complained to a male staff about the toilet not being clean. The woman said she was forced to return to her seat, while the staff insisted that the toilet had been cleaned a few minutes ago. She has also alleged that Sanmith Karandikar, a cabin crew touched her in an inappropriate manner inside the toilet. When she came out and called her sister to tell about the incident, the staff threatened her that they would kick her off the flight for using the phone when the flight was ready to take off.

The woman also stated that when she disembarked the flight in Bengaluru around midnight, she was surrounded by three male ground crew staffs who forced her to apologise. When she refused to, Sanmith along with Kaizad Suntoke and Jithin Ravindran assaulted her by pushing her around. Shocked by the incident, she tried to reach police control room and was taken to a room in the airport by a woman staff where she was threatened that they would file a case against her.

'The staff tried to molest me'

Speaking to Express the woman said, "I filed a case with the police on November 7 as it took me a while to come out of the shock and I had some health issues. On Thursday, the police took me for the spot inspection and the case is being handed over to BIAL police as the incident occurred on the runway. The staff was very rude on the flight and I was worried about my safety. Other passengers supported me till the flight landed. The staff surrounded me on the runaway and took my photos on their phones and tried to molest me when I objected to it. I was not able to record the incident it was dark," she said.

Air Asia airlines were unavailable for comment.