Family gets Rs 4.5 lakh after denied boarding on Bengaluru-Athens Lufthansa flight: Report

The court told the Lufthansa to refund Rs 3.26 lakh and then pay an extra Rs 1.22 lakh incurred as the additional cost to fly Emirates from Bengaluru. (Representational Photo).

A family recently won a court case and received a refund of Rs 4.5 lakh and an extra compensation of Rs 27,000 from German airline Lufthansa, a Times of India report said.

In an incident which took place in October 2021, a woman named Kyriaki Petriti and her son reached the Bengaluru airport to board a Lufthansa flight to Athens via Frankfurt.

They had paid Rs 3.26 lakh for business class tickets but the boy was denied boarding despite having a valid passport since he would not have been allowed to transit through Germany.

That forced the woman and her son to take another flight to Athens. The mother booked an Emirates flight and flew to Athens via Dubai, the tickets of which cost her Rs 4.49 lakh.

Later, they decided to sue Lufthansa in a Bengaluru court which ordered the airline to pay a compensation fee. The court announced the verdict in July 2023 and told the airline to refund the tickets cost of Rs 3.26 lakh and then pay an extra Rs 1.22 lakh incurred as the additional cost to fly Emirates from Bengaluru.

The court also told the airline to pay an extra Rs 15,000 as service deficiency for the boy, Rs 10,000 for causing suffering to the parents and a further Rs 2,000 as court expenses. They gave Lufthansa 45 days to pay the money.

The boy's passport had expired and due to the pandemic situation in India, it became difficult for renewal. The boy's father Ashok Prabhu then applied and received an emergency passport with help from the Greek embassy in New Delhi.

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