Disabled flyer claims AI deplaned her over fit-to-fly certificate

Ahmedabad: After nearly nine hours in the air from Frankfurt, Bhuj native Falguni Maheshwari thought the hardest part of her long journey home was over. The postgraduate student of environment sustainability studies in Germany, wheelchair-dependent due to a disability, had landed in Delhi on May 27 on an Air India flight. After the second shorter flight to Bhuj, also booked with the same carrier, she would be home. Or so she thought.

Air India officials at the Delhi airport deplaned her for the want of a fit-to-fly certificate, a document, Maheshwari said, the airline had not asked for at Frankfurt. After being deplaned, she booked a 8.30pm Delhi-Ahmedabad ticket, also with Air India, and had to arrange for the fit-to-fly certificate in a scramble which saw her family rush to the family doctor. Maheshwari said she was not informed of such a requirement at the time of booking her tickets.

Narrating her ordeaL to TOI, Maheshwari said she had already boarded Air India’s connecting 3pm flight and was hoping to rest a while after the strenuous long-haul journey from Frankfurt. Airline officials, while deplaning her, were unwilling to accept the documents she had flown on from Germany.

“I had a connecting flight to Bhuj, my hometown. After security check and screening, I boarded the aircraft – also an Air India flight — and wanted to rest a bit,” Maheshwari told TOI. “I was asked to leave the aircraft. The airline staff repeatedly asked for a fit-to-fly certificate,” she said, adding that she did not quite understand the demand. “Because I had already travelled with Air India from Frankfurt, and had not been asked for any such document. Despite furnishing my disability certificates issued by authorities in Germany and in India, I had to leave the aircraft at Delhi around 4pm,” she added.

Alone, exhausted and in pain after a long-haul flight, Maheshwari said she had no choice but to wait and think of options even as her tense family members in Gujarat scrambled to help her get out of the unusual situation.

“I managed to book the next available 8.30pm Delhi-Ahmedabad flight. Meanwhile, my parents approached our family doctor in Bhuj, who I regularly visit for check-ups. He issued a fit-to-fly certificate and emailed me a soft copy,” Maheshwari said.

“After landing in Ahmedabad around 10.30pm, I reached Bhuj by car the next morning, exhausted and in pain,” she said. I have travelled internationally before and never encountered such a situation,” she said. To make matters worse, her wheelchair was damaged during the journey when a component went missing, according to Maheshwari’s social media post.

Queries sent to Air India regarding the incident went unanswered.