Consumer forum orders Lufthansa to pay Rs 4.75 lakh to mother and child for denying boarding
Lufthansa to reimburse the airfares totaling Rs 4.5 lakh and pay an additional compensation of Rs 25,000 to the child and mother for denying boarding in an Athens-bound flight. As per a ToI report, the child and mother were grounded at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru in 2021. The airline's ground staff reportedly denied boarding, claiming that transit through Germany was prohibited with an emergency travel document.
The incident happened on October 17, 2021, when the Greek boy and his mother, Kyriaki Petriti, arrived at KIA with business class tickets amounting to Rs 3,26,461 for a Lufthansa flight to Athens via Frankfurt. Stranded in Bengaluru due to the pandemic and with the child's passport expired, the family's patriarch, Ashok Prabhu, obtained an emergency passport from the Greek embassy in New Delhi on October 6, 2021, for his son. To their shock, Lufthansa ground staff at KIA barred the child from boarding, alleging that transit via Germany was prohibited with an emergency passport.
After denial, she was compelled to purchase additional tickets on Emirates for Rs 4,49,374. The duo then successfully flew to Athens via Dubai without an issue, using the same emergency passport. Following this, Petriti contacted the German Federal Police to validate her son's emergency passport.
Their response on October 27, 2021, confirmed that the emergency passport was indeed valid for transit via Germany. After this confirmation, the couple sought resolution through Lufthansa's customer support, only to encounter resistance from the airline, which refused to refund the ticket costs. Fuelled by the airline's lack of accountability, the couple took legal action against Lufthansa, filing a complaint in the
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