Alitalia knows who they want on board

A letter to editor on Tuesday September 5 Chennai Edition of Deccan Chronicle read: "..one is indeed puzzled to report regarding the refusal of Alitalia to fly a Delhi passenger, even when he had very clear travel documents and a confirmed ticket.." and the letter refered to DC, Sept 4. I found a copy, and the lead story on the front page went: "Alitalia tells man he's unfit to fly: Delhi ragpicker had a ticket, but didn't fit `profile' ".

"New Delhi, Sept.3: In a startling and clear case of class bias, the Italian national airline Alitalia refused to allow a Delhi resident to fly business class to Milan, on his way to Brazil to attend an international conference, despite the fact that the passenger had a valid ticket and all his travel documents were in order.

The reason: Santraj Maurya, who made a living out of collecting waste on Delhi's streets, and whose streetsmart leadership skills had attracted the attention of an NGO which was sending him to attend a conference on the impact of privatization of waste pickers worldwide, did not-- in the airline's view-- fit the profile of a businessman or an international traveller.."

Ok, "puzzled" and "strartling" are subjective. And this is about two months late news. But not necessarily stale, as much of the media avoided it. (It did not stay on the online version of the newspaper for long). We had had a related topic about this airline here on this diary once so I thought it makes sense to have this here for record.