Three employees of AirAsia have been accused of misbehaving with a woman passenger during a flight from Ranchi to Bengaluru on November 3. A case has been filed at the Sadashiv Nagar Police Station.
Before the flight took off at Ranchi, the woman complained to a staff member about the toilet not being clean.
She said she was forced to return to her seat while the staff insisted that the toilet was clean.
The woman also alleged that a male staff member touched her inappropriately while she was inside the toilet.
When she tried to call her sister to complain, she said the crew threatened to remove her from the flight for using her phone while the aircraft was about to take off, reported Times of India.
The woman added that three staff members – Sanmith Karandikar, Kaizad Suntoke and Jithin Ravindran – surrounded her after the flight landed at Bengaluru and forced her to apologise.
When she refused, she claimed that they assaulted her by pushing her around.
The woman was taken to a room in the airport by another staff member where she was threatened that they would file a case against her, according to The New Indian Express.
In a statement, AirAsia said, “When the aircraft was taxiing for takeoff from the Ranchi airport, the senior cabin crew operating the flight, following the pre-takeoff safety and security procedures, noticed the lady passenger... speaking on the phone and requested her to switch off her mobile phone as this is against prescribed safety procedures.”
AirAsia filed a complaint of its own with the airport police and reported the matter to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
The airline also added the crew had to repeatedly request her to switch off the phone. "The passenger resorted to verbal abuse against the senior cabin crew, who then managed to calm the passenger down and resume his duties. However, the passenger continued to be abusive," the statement read.
The incident follows the news of IndiGo employees accused of physically assaulting and manhandling a passenger in October. A video of the incident showed two ground staff restraining a 53-year-old passenger and barring him from boarding the shuttle bus.