Indian fliers accuse Air France of racial bias

Indian passengers on board an Air France flight from Boston to Mumbai have accused the airline of racial bias after spending around 11 hours in the transit lounge of Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, on half-a-sandwich and a bottle of water each after the pilots suspected a technical snag in the aircraft.

The airline has denied the charge, saying it took good care of the Indian passengers.

The AF 218 Boston-Paris-Mumbai flight with 169 passengers on board, including 53 Indians, returned to Paris more than three hours after taking off on Sunday. Delayed by around 27 hours, the Indian passengers finally landed in Mumbai early on Tuesday.

The Indians alleged that they were made to sit in the transit lounge with virtually no food while foreign passengers were accommodated in a hotel. “One set of customers [foreigners] were given prompt treatment while we had to argue for small things. I am contemplating taking the airline to court to teach it how to treat people fairly in such situations,” said a livid Naren Kachroo (30), an IBM computer professional. “They treated us as if we were from a third world country even when we asked questions about basic facilities like a phone.”

Vinita Sengupta, 55, an HR consultant who was travelling with her daughter Kalashri, 19, said: “We boarded the flight at Paris on Sunday. It was ready to take off at 10:50am (2:20pm IST) but the pilot aborted takeoff within 10 minutes for some unexplained reason. We remained seated in the plane for two hours. The flight took off at 12:45pm (4:15pm IST).”

But three-and-a-half hours later the pilot announced that the flight would have to be taken back to Paris for operational reasons, Sengupta said. The aircraft landed at de Gaulle airport at 8:05pm (11:35pm IST). 

Sengupta said the passengers were deplaned after half-an-hour. “While the Indians, including us, were taken to the airport transit lounge, the foreign nationals who had visas for Paris were taken to a hotel,” she said.

They didn’t hear anything from the airline for the next three hours. “Around 1am (3:30am IST, Monday), the airline staff took our visas and passports saying they will arrange for transit visas within 30 minutes so that we could rest in a hotel in Paris,” Sengupta said. They were given a sandwich and a 200ml water bottle each. But it was only at 6am (9:30am IST) that airline staff walked in with transit visas for Paris.

Kachroo said they were given just half-a-sandwich each — with fish for non-vegetarians and cheese for vegetarians. “Moreover, the sandwiches were stale and cold. We had to fight for extra bottles of water too,” he said. “We had a horrible time. There were not enough seats in the transit lounge and we had to sit on the floor.”
Children and senior citizens were among those who had to sleep on the floor, Sengupta said.

At 7am (10:30am IST) on Monday, the Indians were taken by bus to a hotel where they had breakfast. “We left again at 10:30am (2pm IST) for the airport as our flight was leaving at 2pm (5:30pm IST) for Mumbai,” she said.

The flight finally landed at 2:20am IST on Tuesday in Mumbai.

“Air France mismanaged the situation and treated us badly. They would have shown more concern had we been their nationals,” Sengupta said.

The airline issued a statement confirming the 27-hour delay. The statement said the pilots “noticed vibrations in the cargo hold”. The problem could not be rectified mid-air, so the flight had to return to Paris, the statement said. No snag was found after checks at the airport.

Air France’s representative in New Delhi told DNA that passengers with valid visas for Paris, who, incidentally, all happened to be foreign nationals, were put up at nearby hotels for the night. Officials said the airline got transit visas for the Indians too, but it took time.

The airline could not explain how all the foreign nationals on board the flight had visas for Paris. But it claimed that Indian passengers “were taken care of” and provided with “food and water” by the ground staff who speak fluent English.