BA offloads 2 drunk flyers for playing music

THE 2 CANADIANS WERE REPORTEDLY DRUNK AND INSISTED ON PLAYING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT IN PLANE

British Airways offloaded two ‘drunk’ passengers at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) as they were insisting on playing a musical instrument inside the flight.

The two Canadian nationals had to spend eight hours at the airport before they were sent in another flight. According to sources, the Central Industrial Security Force had to help the airline in controlling the passengers. Also, the pilot of the plane refused to fly with them.

“At 2.15am on April 13, the passengers were offloaded by the British Airways. They were heading to London by BA 142, which was scheduled to depart at 1.50am. They were in an inebriated state and created nuisance inside the flight. They were taken to the transfer area with the help of security personnel,” said an airport official.

Sources said that the duo was carrying some musical instrument and started playing it in the flight. “They were told to stop it but they refused. To avoid any problem in air, they were offloaded,” the source said.

The passengers had come from Kathmandu and were travelling via Delhi to London. They later departed at 10am by Qatar airways. The airline had also called the Delhi Police but no case was registered.

“The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority. We are sorry for the delay to customers’ travel plans,” said a spokesperson of British Airways.

Delhi airport, which handles about 1.2 lakh passengers every day, has started witnessing such cases almost every day. Hours before this incident, the security agency had to tackle an NRI passenger from Spain, who started drinking after he picked up a bottle of liquor from a dutyfree shop at Terminal 3.

The passenger, who was travelling to Mumbai by an Air India flight, even refused to pay $49 for the Johnnie Walker Black Label bottle saying he did not have the money. His relative paid for the bottle, but between all this chaos, he missed his flight and had to wait for another six hours for the next flight. On Monday evening, a passenger created ruckus as he was unable to exchange the demonetised currency.

The passenger, who had come from Melbourne by an Air India flight, started making a video at red channel of customs area after they refused to exchange his old currency of ₹29,000.

Investigations revealed that the passenger had come out from the terminal, approached his wife and collected old currency. He again entered through arrival exit gate and approached Customs for exchange of old currency on the pretext of being an NRI. Customs officials called Delhi Police and handed him over to them.