India's Jet Airways fined for refusing alcohol to woman

24 Dec BBC

An Indian consumer court in Delhi has ordered Jet Airways to compensate a female passenger who was refused an alcoholic drink because of her gender.

The Indian airline must now pay 50,000 rupees ($925; £590) for not serving a drink to the passenger "only because she is a female".

The complaint was filed by a Canadian woman who was on a flight from Bangkok to Delhi with her family in 2009.

Jet Airways says it has not seen the order and cannot comment.

The complainant, Mrs Jennifer Robinson, works at the Canadian High Commission in Delhi had sought C$50,000 ($49,000; £31,000) in compensation. The court found that amount too high.

The court order says that when she asked for a "rum drink" she was told by a steward that she could not have an alcoholic drink because she was a woman.

In the order, Delhi District Consumer Forum President CK Chaturvedi said that the refusal was not only discriminatory but a deliberate insult in front of all the other passengers. This caused "mental agony, humiliation, insult" to the passenger on her vacation, he said.

The court also directed the airline to give its staff etiquette training on how to behave with female passengers "without any discrimination whether Indian or foreign". Jet Airways said: "We are yet to receive the copy of the order without which we are unable to respond."