Renuka Chaudhary again guilty of delaying flight, says she was not shopping

New Delhi: Congress Parliamentarian Renuka Chaudhary has become a habitual and repeating offender for causing flight-delays when Air India's Chicago-Delhi-Hyderabad flight AI-126 scheduled to take off at 1900 hours on Friday 20th February 2015 was delayed by 45 minutes at Indira Gandhi International Airport (New Delhi) because Renuka Chaudhary was allegedly busy in shopping at the airport.

Similar such incident took place on Friday 28th March 2008 when she was Union Minister of state for Women & Child Development causing JetLite Airways flight number S2/117 from New Delhi to Goa scheduled to take off at 1315 hours left at 1440 hours because of Renuka Chaudhary boarding late.

Union Civil Aviation Ministry and Air India should take corrective measures including taking up the matter with Rajya Sabha Secretariat for preventing flight-delays because of erring politicians, says RTI activist SC Agarwal.

Air India sources said yesterday that Ms Chowdhury,  who is a Congress member of the Rajya Sabha, showed up late to board the flight on Friday despite repeated announcements by the airline's staff.  By the time she arrived at the gate, the pilot had reportedly missed his place in the line for departures on the runway.

"What stopped them from leaving the passenger and taking off?" Ms Chowdhury said.  But airline officials said she could not be left behind because her luggage had been boarded on the plane. For security reasons, flights can't carry unaccompanied baggage. The airline has begun an investigation into the incident, said sources.

Ms Choudhury said that she was not shopping and did not hear herself being paged. She said she was late to the gate because she had requested a buggy to drive her because she has a knee problem. "How did they say I was shopping ? Air India now has to prove that I was shopping or else I will take action," she fumed.

Incident recalls Pakistani air-travelers when they forced out such late-reaching politicians including Pakistan’s former interior minister Rehman Malik and a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker Dr Ramesh Vankwani were forced to get out of the plane on PIA flight-number PK-370 because these leaders were responsible for flight-delay. Time has come that Indians should also behave with erring Indian politicians in similar manner.