In an incident reeking of insensitivity, para athlete Madhu Bagri was allegedly illtreated by the crew of Spice Jet at Tirupati airport on Monday.
India’s first wheelchair tennis player, Madhu Bagri was traveling on a Spice Jet flight from Tirupati to Ahmedabad via Hyderabad. Narrating her ordeal, Madhu alleged that the crew had asked her to “walk, crawl or do anything to reach” her seat. This as the aisle on the aircraft was too narrow to accommodate her wheel-chair.
Madhu says that despite her appeals to give her another seat, the crew tried pushing and pulling the wheelchair, without showing any sensitivity. When she refused to comply with their instructions, she says, “They picked up the aisle wheelchair, wherein my head was almost touching the roof and I was on the verge of falling down, as I lost balance.” Madhu alleges that the crew on-board the aircraft refused to understand her situation, and alleges misbehaviour on the part of officials. The tennis player then says that along with her luggage, she was thrown out of the aircraft and left unattended at the airport.
#TNExclusive | India's para athlete, Madhu Bagri, mistreated at the Tirupati airport; asked to crawl to her seat pic.twitter.com/9SnJAtZ9Gq
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) August 14, 2017
42-year-old Madhu Bagri is India’s first wheelchair tennis player, and has reached a career high world ranking of 113.
This is not the first incidence of the differently-abled being mistreated by airline crew. In the past, Paralympic silver medalist Deepa Malik about insensitivity shown by Vistara airlines in 2016.
The 43 year-old shotput player alleged that the crew were poor at handling the wheelchair, and also complained of rude behavior by the cabin crew.
She had pointed out that the crew were not trained on how to shift a person from a wheelchair to the cabin.
Subsequently, Vistara airlines apologized and initiated a probe into the matter.