Indigo issues clarification after passenger complains of mosquitoes

Hours after a passenger was offboarded at Lucknow after he complained of mosquitoes in the Indigo flight, the airlines on Tuesday claimed that they carry out all standard operating procedure against mosquito menace.

The passenger Saurabh Rai earlier today alleged that the IndiGo crew held him by his collar and dragged him through the aisle after he complained about mosquitoes in the flight.

In a statement, IndiGo clarified, "Given the mosquito menace in some of the stations in hot weather every year, as the standard operating procedure, we spray the aircraft with an approved aircraft insecticide prior to boarding. In fact, on this aircraft, the aircraft insecticide was sprayed twice. We also put mosquito repellant patches under our aircraft seats".

"Once all passengers were on board- doors had been closed and the welcome announcement was in progress. Dr. Rai seated on 22 C started complaining about mosquitoes still being present inside the aircraft. The lead cabin attendant tried to pacify Dr. Rai and even showed the two used empty cans of the approved aircraft insecticide as well as the mosquito repellant patches," the statement added.

The statement further added that the passenger aggressively demanded that the aircraft to be sprayed again.

"However, Dr. Rai was not satisfied and came forward 10 rows to row 12, while the seatbelt sign was on, and started aggressively demanding that the aircraft be sprayed again, even if it meant deplaning the passengers and delaying the flight. The lead tried to explain that this was a pressurized cabin and as the temperature cools down, the phenomena would subside," the statement added.

At no point of time was there any physical altercation with the passenger, the statement added.

"In the presence of CISF, the IndiGo security staff explained the situation to Dr. Rai. In the meantime, some of the other passengers started complaining about him being on-board since they felt that he had already delayed the aircraft and behaved in an inappropriate manner. Finally, a decision was taken to deplane Dr. Rai from the aircraft to ensure the safe conduct of the flight," the IndiGo added.

Earlier in the day, IndiGo carried out a thorough investigation into the matter.