Government officials present at the airport forced us to fly Reddy: IndiGo

NEW DELHI: The government received on Monday two diametrically opposed accounts of how TDP MP Diwakar Reddy managed to board an IndiGo flight to Hyderabad last week after he was initially barred following a face-off with the airline’s officials at the Visakhapatnam airport.
The report by the Airports Authority of India’s (AAI) airport director (APD) says IndiGo staff agreed to let Reddy fly after the APD asked them to.But the airline, offering a blow-by-blow account of the episode, said that it was “regrettably” forced to let the MP board at the behest of government officials present at the airport. Reddy’s rude behaviour continued even after he was allowed to board, the airline added.
Reddy was denied boarding last Thursday after he reported late for IndiGo’s flight 6E 608. He then misbehaved with airline officials, and sought the help of aviation minister and party colleague Ashok Gajapathi Raju, who happened to be at the airport at the time.
A source privy to the AAI report said: “When the MP spoke to minister Raju, the latter asked the APD to see what the issue is. Raju, who always goes by the book, did not ask the APD to help Reddy. The APD spoke to IndiGo staffers, who said they will fly the MP on 6E 608.”
The AAI report makes it look like a consensual decision, where IndiGo gladly accepted the MP. The airline has offered a completely different account.
Watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation, which comes under the ministry of civil aviation (Mo-CA), asked IndiGo on Monday to submit a “factual equity report” of the episode.
The IndiGo report, sources said, says the airline “received instructions” from the AAI chief security officer (CSO) of Vizag to accept the MP on 6E 608. The AAI staff told IndiGo to do so at “the behest of MoCA officials present at the airport”.
“We had no opportunity to verify the instructions of the CSO with any of the Mo-CA officials present at that time in the airport,” IndiGo tells DGCA in its report.
It goes on to add that Reddy continued to “verbally abuse” IndiGo staff from the security check to the boarding gate. It informs the DGCA about the MP “barging into the airline’s office, pushing the staff and picking up a printer in the office”.
Giving this account, the airline has told the DGCA that IndiGo and some other airlines have decided to ban Reddy from their flights “in the interest of safety of passengers and staff.”
In a similar recent episode involving an unruly MP, police have taken no action against Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad for assaulting an Air India staffer despite the airline and the employee filing complaints. No police complaint has been filed so far in the Reddy case.