Inclusion Daily Express -- Airline Must Do More Than Apologize, Says Industrialist

Inclusion Daily Express Logo

International Disability Rights News Service
Click here for today's headlines & home page

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Airline Must Do More Than Apologize, Says Industrialist
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
January 4, 2008

NEW DELHI, INDIA--Jet Airways may have messed with the wrong woman.

Sminu Jindal, 34, has used a wheelchair since her spine was injured in a vehicle accident when she was 11 years old. In the years since, she has worked her way up to Managing Director of her family's $3 billion industrial company, Jindal SAW.

Jindal told reporters that on December 25, she and her husband were set to board their Jet Airways flight from Delhi to Bangkok, when an airline worker told her she would have to sign a bond, saying the company would not be responsible if anything were to happen to her during the flight.

"I said why me? They said it's their management policy," she told CNN-IBN. "I said I refuse to sign it. They said either I had to sign it or I couldn't be on board."

Jindal was finally allowed to board, but other problems came up on her January 1 return flight. The airline failed to provide a lift up to the door of the aircraft, she said, nor did it provide an aisle chair to help her reach the seat. Both are required under Indian aviation regulations.

Jet Airways reportedly apologized to Jindal in an email to an IBN reporter.

Jindal says that's not good enough.

She told The Times of India: "The issue is not about me being treated like this, but how airlines still refuse to provide basic assistance and dignity to physically-challenged passengers."

"I don't want an apology. I want change," she told IBN.

Related:
"Jet apologizes to Jindal Saw chief over harassment" (Times of India)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/2008/red/0104b.htm
"Jindal MD speaks out against Jet Airways insensitivity" (CNN-IBN)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/2008/red/0104c.htm

Click here for top of this page

Purchase this story for your website or newsletter . . .

Here's what subscribers say about Inclusion Daily Express. . .

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Get your news here!