UPDATE: BA passengers offloaded en route to Jamaica claim ‘inhuman’ treatment
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Conflicting reports have emerged surrounding the removal of a British Airways passenger from a flight that was en route from London, England to Kingston, Jamaica on Wednesday.
The latest account of events suggest that a man was forcibly tied up and dragged back to his seat in economy after going to business class to stretch his legs.Earlier reports had claimed that a rowdy couple was offloaded from the London to Jamaica flight at a Portuguese air force base Wednesday after a row broke out over their demands for an upgrade to business class, military officials said.
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BA offloads British couple from flight to Jamaica over business class row However, according to reports from MailOnline, 65-year-old Kwame Bantu, who suffers from cancer and diabetes, saw his leg swelling one hour into the flight, and began to feel dizzy.Bantu, who according to another British online paper, The Sun, was on his way to visit relatives in the island, moved into business class to get some room to stretch his leg but was ambushed by six members of staff who forcibly dragged him back to his seat in economy class.“They refused to listen about my medical illness…I was treated like a slave. I can understand if they thought I was going to be violent but [the restraints] stopped my blood from circulating,” Bantu told the British newspaper.The MailOnline added that a fellow passenger, identified as Joy Stoney, allegedly intervened in the fracas and was subsequently ejected from the plane herself.Stoney, as reported by MailOnline described the treatment of Bantu as “inhuman” and that they refused him access to the plane’s bathrooms, despite his diabetic condition.“What alarmed me the most was when he wanted to urinate…He was holding his crotch area for a while and it was horrible to see. I called the steward manager to come see me and told her I would escort him to the toilet myself. They said, ‘He needs to defecate himself in the chair’,” Stoney was quoted as saying.Bantu and Stoney were ejected from the flight reportedly without their luggage and claimed that they have received no help from the British consulate to return to the UK.British Airways told the Independent Newspaper that they take great care to handle these difficult situations as sensitively as possible.“Our cabin crew and one of our pilots repeatedly asked a customer to return to his booked seat in economy after he sat in our business class cabin without permission. He repeatedly refused, verbally abused crew members and disturbed other customers,” British Airway defended.They added that as a last resort, the cabin crew felt they had no option but to restrain the customer in the interests of the safety of everyone on board and helped him walk back to his original seat.