Not allowed to board Dharamsala flight, woman lands in quarantine

Ashok Raina

Kangra, June 20

A 51-year-old woman passenger, Vida Dias, who was to travel by the Delhi-Dharamsala flight of SpiceJet in the national capital on Friday, was not allowed to board the plane by airlines officials without an e-pass though she had been issued a boarding pass.

Vida Dias’s husband Dr Manoj Kumar Sharma is a neurosurgeon in Shri Bal Ji Hospital here. She arrived in Delhi from Guwahati on Friday morning and visited the SpiceJet airlines counter. She was provided a boarding pass for seat No. 15C in the SG2778 flight that was to leave at 10.50 am. But when boarding started at 10.30 am, she was not allowed to board the plane without an e-pass.

She approached Kangra Deputy Commissioner Rakesh Kumar Prajapati, who asked for the appointment letter of her husband and the boarding pass which she furnished within a few minutes. The Deputy Commissioner’s office told SpiceJet officials at the Kangra airport at 10.50 am to ask their colleagues at the Delhi airport to allow her to board the plane but they said that gates had been closed. She was left at the airport in a desperate condition for no fault of her.

Vida Dias said that at the time of booking ticket and even while issuing the boarding pass the airline officials did not ask her for the e-pass. Kangra SDM Jatin Lal tried to help her. But when she came out of the airport, she was asked to go in for 14-day quarantine in Gurugram.

She said, “I do not have an Himachal identity proof, so I am an outsider though I am residing in the state for the past two years. SpiceJet is asking for an Himachal ID and my marriage certificate. Who carries the marriage certificate? People like me have to suffer because my husband has decided to serve the people of this hill state”. She is now in quarantine.