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Journalism of Courage
Commonwealth Games gold medalist, Manika Batra and six other prominent India Table Tennis players were denied boarding in a Delhi-Melbourne Air India flight because it had been “overbooked”. In a Twitter post, Batra wrote that only 10 members from the 17-person team were allowed to fly even as seven others remained stranded at the Indira Gandhi International Airport.
As she expressed her shock online, Netizens were left fuming by the mismanagement and termed national carrier, Air India irresponsible.
Soon, Sports India DG Neelam Kapur took cognizance of the matter and assured arrangments will be made for the star players to reach the tournament on time. “The TT team have been booked on an alternate flight leaving later tonight,” Kapur confirmed later.
Air India came forward with a statement later and said that they were not “apprised beforehand about the travel of team”. On Twitter, the airline company also informed, “The Indian #Tabletennisteam were booked for today’s Melbourne flight under different PNRs & some of them may have reported after all other passengers had checked in [SIC].”
Kapur too added that they reached at 10:30 for a 12:40 flight. However, Netizens were not convinced with this and said two hours was enough for checking and the players shouldn’t have gone through all this. Many asked if cricketers would have received the same treatment.
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