Co-passenger slams Air India captain, staff for mishandling urinating situation
1 min read . Updated: 07 Jan 2023, 01:47 PM IST
PremiumThe co-passenger accused Air India personnel of failing to assist the victim swiftly.
US-based doctor Sugata Bhattacharjee was a passenger on the Air India flight where the infamous urination incident took place. Bhattacharjee has now provided details about what happened and how the airline staff behaved.
Bhattacharjee stated that he had spoken with the accused, Mumbai-based businessman Shankar Mishra. When he realised that Mishra was drunk, he requested that the Air India stewards not serve him any more drinks. However, he is unsure whether the crew cooperated with his request or not. Mishra may have had another couple of drinks after that, the doctor said in an exclusive interview with India Today,
While Bhattacharjee said he was not present for the peeing episode, he was present during the subsequent events. He directly chastised the airline personnel for failing to assist the victim swiftly and forcing her to sit in the dirty seat for several hours. The victim's body, according to Bhattacharjee, was reeking of urine and had to share the same seat for a long time. After some time, when a crew seat became vacant, the personnel placed many blankets on it and gave it to her.
The senior stewardess informed him that it was not her decision to make when the doctor addressed her and requested that she assign the traumatised customer another seat. The captain allegedly took two hours to assign her a new seat.
Bhattacharjee did praise two young stewardesses, who assisted the woman in changing clothing and sanitised her suitcase and other items. It is illegal to expose oneself indecently, as per the doctor, no one on the airline personnel was authorised to mediate the incident. Separating the victim from the passenger and reporting the incident to the proper authorities was their responsibility, Bhattacharjee told the publication.
Bhattacharjee claimed that he made a two-page complaint regarding the way the flight crew handled the issue and criticised the captain for making a "poor judgement call" by not immediately giving the victim a clean seat in first class.
No one accepted responsibility; instead, it was left to chance that the two sides would communicate and resolve the issue, Bhattacharjee said.
