Mumbai teen flyer stranded on London street
Travelling alone, 16-year-old Aashna Kenia, who lives in Dadar, had a harrowing experience last week after British Airways cancelled her flight, leaving her in the lurch at an airport that shuts down at night. With hotels all booked, she had to wait it out on a pavement for about an hour, till a cousin who lives in London rushed to her rescue.
Aashna was flying Reykjavik-London-Mumbai on British Airways (BA) on July 25-26. After her seven-hour layover in Heathrow, she reached the boarding gate at 9pm, only to be told that BA had cancelled the London-Mumbai leg. "I was exhausted as I had returned from a month-long camp in Iceland. I hadn't slept well for 24 hours," she said later. Expecting to be booked into a hotel, Aashna reached the airline counter she was directed to, only to be told that they couldn't provide her with a hotel room. "They said about 20 flights had been cancelled and it wasn't possible to accommodate all passengers. I tried to reason with them. I told them I was travelling alone," she said.
Aashna spent the next 90 minutes hunting for places in the airport to spend the night, with her father on the phone from Mumbai. At midnight, she was told to leave the airport. Heathrow follows night curfew and is shut midnight to 5am. With her haversack, Aashna walked down to a five-star hotel five minutes from the airport. "They didn't have a single vacant room," she said. Her father, Nimish Kenia, had phoned the hotel. "I told them give her any room, a suite… we will pay. She had stayed at the hotel a month ago. There were no rooms. So I requested them to let her sit in the lobby, but they refused," he said.
Told her these are challenges of life: Mumbai teen's father
The lobby had a number of stranded passengers, waiting to be checked in, said Aashna. "I had to go out. I sat on the pavement outside the hotel. The staff got me water. At this point, I was stressed. I had spent the past five hours trying to find accommodation in the airport, lounge, hotel. I thought I might have to spend the night on the pavement."
Her father, who was on the phone with her throughout the ordeal, said she was rather calm and brave about it. "I told her these are the challenges of life. We have to learn from this," he said.
The father was also calling up relatives and friends in London, not sure if anyone would be reachable at 2am. But it turned out to be the only solution. A cousin reached the airport and picked Aashna up at 3am, and then dropped her back at 7am for her morning flight to Mumbai. But another nasty surprise awaited her.
"I thought now that I was going to board the plane, I could finally sleep," she said. But once she was on the plane, she found she had been downgraded to economy class, no explanations given. "When I spoke to a cabin crew member, he told me I should consider myself lucky that at least I got a seat. A number of passengers hadn't managed to get on to the flight," Aashna said.
After landing in Mumbai, she had yet another unsavoury experience. Her check-in bag hadn't arrived. She had to fill out a missing bag complaint. This was the first time Aashna was on an international trip alone. British Airways has not commented on the case.
[1][2][3]
References
- ^ life lessons (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
- ^ British Airways (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
- ^ international trip (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
from India News | Latest News Headlines & Live Updates from India - Times of India https://ift.tt/319nlTJ
Post a Comment