Senior Indian bureaucrat accuses British Airways of racial discrimination

New Delhi : A senior bureaucrat has alleged “racial discrimination” and “rude behaviour” by the British Airways, which deplaned him and his family from a flight to Berlin from London last month minutes before take-off because his three-year-old son was crying on board.
The bureaucrat, in a letter to Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu on August 3, has alleged that another Indian family, sitting behind them, was also offloaded as they offered biscuits to the child to console him.
The incident took place on July 23.
The bureaucrat alleged that the crew got the plane (BA 8495) to return to the tarmac, where the security personnel took their boarding passes away.
The customer care service manager did not give reasons for offloading them, nor did the management take action against the crew despite lodging a complaint, he claimed.
“We had to make our own arrangements for staying and travelling to Berlin the next day by paying a hefty amount,” he said, adding that the other Indian family was given tickets for a flight the next day, without any accommodation though. The bureaucrat is a joint secretary-level officer in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.