Koru Lounge spat: Lawyer ordered to pay Air NZ $30k
A lawyer has been ordered to pay Air New Zealand $30,000 after losing a court battle with the airline over a travel ban and a Koru Lounge spat.
Anjela Sharma was slapped with a one-year ban by the airline and failed in her bid to quash the order when the High Court in Auckland dismissed her application for a interim injunction in February.
She alleged the ban breached the airline’s contractual obligations after she had booked and paid for flights she could later no longer use.
In a decision released yesterday, Justice Paul Davison ordered her to pay $30,114 to Air NZ together with disbursements of $3657.
The dispute between Sharma, who runs an employment consultancy and law office in Nelson, and Air NZ began as she was travelling from Nelson to India in December 2018 with her family.
Sharma said she was challenged on her family’s eligibility to be in the Koru Lounge, court documents read.
The Sharmas were travelling domestically from Nelson to Auckland with Air NZ, before travelling on a business class flight from Auckland to India with Singapore Airlines.
The lawyer said, on her understanding, their tickets entitled them to use the airline’s Nelson Koru Club Lounge and they were allowed in the lounge for the two hours before the flight.
But, Sharma, who with her husband were Koru Club members, said staff later questioned why she was there. But none of the couple’s six children was a club member. Under the Koru Club policy members are allowed to invite only one guest.
A later report said Air NZ staff who dealt with Sharma found her behaviour abusive and offensive. At one point one of the security staff was called in and offered to contact police.
The report said Sharma was known to staff at Nelson Airport for “engaging in intimidating and bullying behaviour . . . every time she travelled through the airport”.
Sharma was later emailed and warned about her alleged behaviour.
The following April, she emailed former Air NZ chief executive Christopher Luxon arguing there was no justification for the warning letter.
Sharma’s correspondence to the airline continued and in June 2019 another dispute arose when Sharma went to check in and she claimed a staff member had been abusive and “on a venomous mission” against her.
The team leader who responded to the incident said Sharma’s bullying behaviour was some of the most extreme she had encountered in her 24 years as an Air NZ employee.
Sharma’s one-year ban was imposed on July 2 last year.