Air India Offloads 75-Yr-Old Wheelchair User From Flight to New York

A 75-year-old woman on a wheelchair was offloaded from an Air India flight from New Delhi to New York after being told the flight was overbooked.

Rajesh Shukla, who was travelling to New York to be there for her grandson's first birthday, was booked as a wheelchair-enabled passenger on flight AI 101.

But when she reached the check-in counter at the IGI airport she was told that she was on standby as the flight was overbooked with passengers from a flight cancelled the previous night.

The incident became public after her daughter Rupal Tierra tweeted, "Air India has offloads my 70 year mother from her US flight because of overbooking. She is wheelchair-bound and scared. Please help! @airindiain".

Sources said the flight was overbooked and the airline gave the passenger an option to travel in an another flight immediately.

Finally, after an hour of commotion, she was given a transit flight via Heathrow at 2:45 in the morning.