Actress Shilpa Shetty complains of racism at Sydney Airport
SYDNEY: Actress Shilpa Shetty has complained of curt treatment by an officer at Sydney Airport, which she described as “racism”.
Commenting on the alleged incident, Shetty said that people’s tone of voice must not change with preference to colour.
Back in 2007, she had faced racism while contesting during the fifth season of the British reality show “Celebrity Big Brother”.
The latest incident happened when she was boarding a plane for Melbourne from Sydney.
Shetty, 43, took to Instagram to share the ordeal with a Qantas Airways lady staff member over a cabin luggage, which was deemed as ‘oversized’.
A furious Shetty wrote: “At the check-in counter, met a grumpy Mel (that’s her name) who decided it was ‘okay’ to speak curtly to ‘us’ ( brown people) travelling together. I was flying business and had 2 bags (my allowance) and she insisted and decided my half empty duffel bag was oversized (to check-in), so she sent us to check it in at the other counter dealing with ‘oversized luggage.’
“There a polite lady (yes this one was) said, ‘ This is not an oversized bag, please check this in manually if you can at another counter’ (all this happening while the counter is going to shut in five minutes).
“As the manual check-in wasn’t going through for five minutes (we tried), I went up to Mel and requested her to put the bag through as her colleague said it wasn’t an oversized bag. She refused again... Just being adamant especially when I told her this is causing a lot of inconvenience.
“We had no time to waste so we ran to the oversized baggage counter and requested her to put the bag through which she did after I told her that rude Mel had issues! To which another colleague joined in and reiterated my duffle wasn’t oversized and could’ve easily been checked in.”
Commenting on how she feels about it, Shetty also wrote: “Their staff must be taught to be helpful and tone can’t change with preference to colour. ‘We’ are not pushovers and they must know that being callous and rude will not be tolerated.”