International air travel has been a most turbulent affair throughout the pandemic. Flights have been cancelled; travel plans have been disrupted; refunds have been delayed these unprecedented times. Even boarding has been denied for minor discrepancies in travelers’ compliance with airlines, airports, or destination countries’ regulations. The Times of India reported the latest instance of denial of boarding at Kempegowda International Airport, BLR on February 19.
British Airways denied boarding to a 73-year-old from Karnataka to her utter dismay because of a slight mismatch between her name on the passport and that on the vaccine certificate downloaded from Indian government’s Co-Win portal. The mismatch occurred as the initials of her first name (T K Saraswathy) were not expanded on the vaccine certificate unlike on the passport. Her husband named V N Srinivas Murthy, former director of Mysore University, was also stopped at the airline’s check-in counter for the same reason.
Both T K Saraswathy and V N Srinivas Murthy holding a B2 visa, were about to travel on a BA-operated American Airlines flight to the USA with their daughter Rupa Murthy, a medical professional in Miami. Rupa traveled from USA to Bengaluru only to take her ailing parents to Miami where she had pre-planned their 43rd wedding anniversary celebration on February 22. With her mother left behind to fly alone on another day, the anniversary celebration plans in the doldrums.
A woman ground staffer at British Airways’ check-in counter stopped her parents though their last names, date of birth, and passport numbers matched in the vaccine certificate and the passport. She immediately logged in to the Co-Win app using her father’s registered phone number and updated his name on the vaccination certificate. One’s name on a vaccine certificate can be edited or corrected only once through the Co-Win portal. But she was not able to edit her mother’s name in the vaccine certificate somehow.
Rupa and her father were onboarded, but her elderly mother was left behind at a relative’s place in Bengaluru. They traveled with a heavy heart. An airport staffer had intervened and the elderly passenger should have been onboarded as her last name and passport number matched in all documents. But the British Airways staff stood her ground and did not pay heed to any argument and request. Her mother is rescheduled to travel on February 23 at an additional cost of $1000. However, the non-existent rule split up her parents on the wedding anniversary for the first time in four decades.
After landing at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Rupa Murthy walked in to the British Airways office, narrated the entire incidence and objected to the rule that was cited to deny boarding to her mother at Bangalore Airport. To her surprise, she learned that the reason for not letting her mother travel was not in place. She is now worried as her mother will be traveling alone. Reportedly, she has filed an official complaint with the airline.