Mumbai News: Airlines asks for extra baggage payment, gets a bomb threat instead

Mumbai: Extra baggage costs a bomb, literally so, as a private airline found. A female passenger about to board a Mumbai-Kolkata flight, threatened that she carried a bomb in her baggage when she was asked to pay for the extra baggage she was carrying.

The Sahar police have booked the woman for allegedly creating a false bomb scare when she arrived to board a Mumbai-Kolkata flight on Monday.

The complainant in the case is DA Wadkar, a Customer Service Executive (CSE) with a private airline, who was on duty at the airport when a woman passenger demanded a boarding pass from an airline staffer of Mumbai-Kolkata flight. The passenger was carrying two bags which she had given to the airline staffer for check-in. As per the rules of the said airline, domestic passengers are permitted to carry only one baggage the weight of which should not exceed 15kg.

When the airline staffer asked the woman to pay charges for the baggage over 15kg, she refused and got into a spat with the staffers, according to the police. As Wadkar was attempting to brief her about the rules of the airline company, the woman suddenly claimed that she had a bomb in her bag.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officials then called in sniffer dogs to examine her bags. However, nothing was found and her claim turned out to be false.

A police case was filed against her under sections 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 505 (2) (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code.