BENGALURU: After a gruelling trip from Frankfurt to Istanbul in Turkey, 382 passengers reached Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) at 1.40 pm, over 36 hours behind the scheduled time, by a Lufthansa flight.
Besides heaving a huge sigh of relief over finally landing in India, passengers shared their agony and rage over the manner in which they were treated by a foreign airline as well as at a foreign airport.
Charges of racism, utter disrespect towards Indians and being treated as second-grade citizens flew thick and fast online and during interactions with TNIE.
Flight LH 754 took off on Tuesday from Germany, 20 minutes behind its scheduled time of 1.05 pm and was supposed to reach KIA at 1.25 am on Wednesday. A major onboard medical emergency forced the flight to be diverted mid-air. Vashishta Jayanti, who runs his own landscape design business in Bengaluru, had gone to Alitalia in Turkey.
“Five of us flew to Frankfurt as Lufthansa operates a direct flight to Bengaluru from there. Just 25 minutes after the flight took off, an 85-year-old passenger, a Sri Lankan native, developed a health emergency. He was foaming at his mouth and had breathing problems. Three doctors, who were also passengers, were attending to him. After four hours of flying the flight captain announced when we were flying over Baghdad that it would be diverted to Istanbul due to a passenger's medical emergency.”
No accommodation given to us for nearly 30 hours, says flyer
Vashishta added that most flyers empathised with the situation and had no problems until they landed on Istanbul airport.
“The passenger was taken away and we were told that the aircraft would take off after refuelling which was being done. 45 minutes later, we were told that the oxygen canisters on board had to be refilled as they were used for an ill passenger. We were seated inside the aircraft for 4.5 hours.”
Almost 20 per cent of the passengers were senior citizens and some had already flown 15 hours from the US or Canada to board this flight from Frankfurt, he added.
The passengers were later told that they had to alight and would be taken to the lounge. As the passengers were stepping out of the aircraft, Turkish officials said they needed a visa to enter their soil, the businessman explained. Finally, they were allowed only in the lounge.
Grammy award winner Ricky Kej, who was also on the flight, told TNIE, “Three very important meetings of mine have now been cancelled and two postponed. Also, I need to fly tomorrow to San Francisco for a concert and I did not get time to rehearse. Since a new boarding pass was not issued, most of the shops did not allow us to buy anything as they wanted a valid pass,” Kej said.
Vashishta’s brother Agasthya Jayanti said, “We were told to occupy only one section of the lounge. No accommodation was provided for us for nearly 30 hours. It felt like being inside jail and we were like hostages there. We were told multiple times that the flight would take off but that never happened. When the passengers protested and blocked the lounge, airport police were called and we faced the threat of being arrested,” he said.
Vashishta and his friends finally took an Oman Air flight, paid over Rs 50,000 per ticket and reached the city on their own.