Telangana IT and industries minister KT Rama Rao urged IndiGo airlines to respect local languages and passengers who may not be fluent in either English or Hindi after news of a Telugu passenger being asked to vacate her seat at the exit because she could not understand security procedures explained in English and Hindi became viral. He also advised airlines to recruit staff conversant in regional languages on routes like these.
Retweeting a tweet by a user named Devasmita Chakraverty, Rao wrote, “Dear IndiGo management, I request you to start respecting local languages and passengers who may not be well conversant in English or Hindi. In regional routes, recruit more staff who can speak the local language like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada,etc. This will be a win-win situation.”
Chakraverty claimed a woman sitting in 2A (XL seat, exit row) was forced to take seat 3C because she could not comprehend English/Hindi. As per the user, this incident took place on an IndiGo flight from Andhra Pradesh to Telangana.
Chakraverty further stated that the flight attendant asked the female passenger to vacate her seat and cited safety issues. Chakraverty further wrote, “No dignity, non-Hindi treated as second class-citizens in their own state.”
She also noted that Emirates flight from Dubai to Kolkata has instructions in both English and Bangla. Tagging Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Chakraverty said, “I am looking up to you to resolve this at a systemic level. As policy, safety instructions should be available in all languages and used as per need, not just English/Hindi. It’s a matter of safety, dignity and treating everyone equally. Hope you’ll do the right thing.”
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