Disabled PC- businessman sues Airline for traumatic ordeal

Sandasen Marasinghe

COLOMBO: An Attorney who is also a Provincial Councillor has sued Qatar Airways for negligence and uncourteous conduct of its staff and is claiming US dollars 5500 plus Rs. 10 million as damages for mental and physical distress, suffered.

In a plaint filed before the Colombo District Court Attorney-at Law and Uva Provincial Councillor A.M.K.S. Bandara Attanayake has cited Qatar Airways, Qatar Airways Tower, Airport Road, Doha-Qatar,which has its branch office at West Tower, World Trade Centre, Colombo 01, as the defendant.

Plaintiff Attanayake stated that he was an Attorney, a member of Uva Provincial Council and businessman engaged in the manufacture of recycled paper based products and related products including hand made pencils.

He said he is a disabled person having been struck by polio since the age of one. He however was a regular visitor to international exhibitions to market his products, primarily aimed at the international market. He is confined to a wheel-chair.

He has a specially designed motorized wheel-chair and a manual wheel-chair. In all his travels abroad he had encountered no problem in transporting his two wheel chairs.

In his petition Attanayake said that in January 2006, he had to travel to Frankfurt, Germany to take part in Paperworld International Stationery Fair to promote his products. He was travelling in the defendant’s Airline where he handed over the two wheel-chairs.

Petitioner said the on January 23, 2006 at the Bandaranaike International Airport on boarding the flight to Doha, passengers were informed of a flight delay and were requested to disembark.

When he disembarked the stewardess in the business class treated him in an unprofessional and discourteous manner. The flight was five and half hours late. Meanwhile the stewardess ignored his plea to conduct him to the restroom. Eventually after a five hour flight, at Doha, plaintiff was conveyed to the second flight which was to take a further seven hours.

At Doha too his request to convey him to the restroom was ignored and he had to suffer great physical discomfort.

Attanayake further said upon disembarking in Frankfurt he was informed that his wheel-chairs had been displaced and his request to provide a replacement wheel-chair ignored . It was only after three days in Frankfurt that he received the two wheel-chairs but he could not attend the opening ceremony of the exhibition.

Upon his return to Colombo, he was informed that his two wheel-chairs had got displaced. After another two days he received the two wheel-chairs which were badly damaged.

The plaintiff prayed the District Court to order the defendant to pay a sum of US$ 5500 for the damage caused to the wheel- chairs and a further Rs 10 million for the mental and physical distress he suffered.