BENGALURU: Former foreign secretary and author Nirupama Rao allegedly had a string of unpleasant experiences on a flight from Bengaluru to Vienna, Austria and even during the return journey as staff members were rude, she was not provided the meal she had booked and the airline misplaced her bag as well.
After the 71-year-old retired diplomat took to social media with her complaint, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is probing the matter.
Rao, an IFS officer of the 1973 batch, is former Indian ambassador to the US and resident of Bengaluru since 2013. She boarded the flight from Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) to Vienna last week as a business-class flyer.
Rao’s bad experience is said to have started after she noticed that the toilets in the plane weren’t functioning.
The former diplomat was provided the wrong food despite having pre-booked her preferred meal online. Returning to Bengaluru on the Dutch carrier with transit at Amsterdam, Rao realised that her checked-in bag was missing.
Annoyed by the experience and poor staff response, Rao questioned the airline staffers, who were rude despite her plight, she noted in a social media post after landing home in Bengaluru.
While Rao refused to further comment on the matter, TOI on Monday reached out to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines representatives in India who initially expressed ignorance about it.
Following preliminary enquiries, the airline sources said they tried to reach out to the former IFS officer but she was not reachable over cellphone. “We have written an email to her on the matter as we have started a probe based on her complaint. Her checked-in bag is not lost but has been ascertained as misplaced during transit. We will retrieve it and hand it over to her soon,” a KLM source said.
