As Indians are facing issues with several domestic airlines, it seems like the problem has spiralled to an international level. Recently, a Reddit user shared a dreadful experience with a Lufthansa flight and accused the airlines of discriminating against Indians, especially those who cannot speak English.
In a lengthy Reddit post, the Indian-origin user who lives in New York, mentioned several instances of the Lufthansa staff members discriminating against Indians and insulting them.
''Ground service agents at Frankfurt were not helpful, specifically Lufthansa employees. One such example: I asked an airline representative where I could fill my water bottle in Frankfurt, and he replied by saying "Do I look like the information desk to you, don't ask me,'' he wrote in the post.
He continued to list several other incidents of racism he witnessed firsthand – “On my flight to India, two crew members would insult passengers, specifically those who were older and could not speak English that well. I saw this occur multiple times with different passengers sitting in front of me,” he wrote.
He described another case in which an elderly woman, who was not fluent in English, pointed to the tea on the beverage cart and said, "Yes." He claimed that the flight attendant "almost yelled" at the old lady and told her to "open your mouth and use your words" instead of giving her the tea.
He mentioned another incident from the same flight, saying how a woman who ordered vegetarian food was served a chicken meal. ''When she opened it, realised it was chicken, and asked a crew member to replace it,” he said.
“They couldn't replace it since she opened it, and went on to say you don't do it to a restaurant, eat the food and ask for it to be taken back,'' the post read.
“None of these issues are that serious, but I could not even imagine them treating American or European customers this way without significant pushback. I understand the cabin crew role is difficult and demanding. However, I cannot justify spending 800 dollars on a ticket and seeing that the crew can just treat people in an insulting way. I will be giving this feedback to the airline as well,” he added.
Agreeing with the Reddit user on X (formerly Twitter), Bengaluru-based techie Shantanu Goel shared a screenshot of the former's post. “All this behavior, including downright rude and idiotic staff is unfortunately not an aberration but quite common on Lufthansa, which is why I never fly it,” Goel wrote.
The post also caught the attention of Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma who quote-tweeted the post and wrote, ''Can't wait for Air India and Indigo to go places -- many of us would rather not fly European airlines.''