Pragya Thakur Refused to Shift from Non-Emergency Seat: SpiceJet in Response to MP's Complaint

Guwahati, December 23, 2019:

SpiceJet, in its statement against a complaint filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Pragya Thakur for allegedly refusing to let her stay in her seat, clarified that the MP had refused to shift to a non-emergency seat.

Pragya Thakur had boarded a flight from Delhi to Bhopal and she was seated in an emergency seat. She refused to move to a non-emergency seat despite requests by passengers, which delayed the flight by 45 minutes, informed the airline’s spokesperson.

According to the spokesperson, the first row in the aircraft is the emergency seat and is not allocated to passengers on wheelchairs. “As the BJP MP had come with her own wheelchair and had not booked through the airline, the staff wasn’t aware of this fact that she was a wheelchair passenger. She was requested by the crew to shift to 2A/B [in a non-emergency row] due to safety reasons but she refused,” added the spokesperson.

It may be mentioned here that Thakur had submitted a complaint with the Bhopal Airport Director on Saturday, and had claimed that the authorities had misbehaved with her. SpiceJet issued a clarification on Sunday, saying that safety instructions were also shown to her but she refused to move from her seat.

The spokesperson added that other passengers also requested the airline staff to offload the MP as she refused to change her seat. She gave up the seat much later and only then the flight could take off.

In a video that surfaced showed one of the passengers saying, "You should have the moral compass to own up if other people are being inconvenienced because of you. Despite being a (political) leader, you are holding 50 people at ransom," one of them is heard telling the Bhopal MP.”

It showed Pragya telling the passenger that she had some issue and that was why she boarded a flight without first class in it.

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