Thursday, May 14, 2009

Air-France treats Indians like Indians treat other Indians: with contempt

According to various reports, India passengers on Sunday's Air France Boston-Paris-Mumbai flight, AF 218, were living history as they were treated by the French the same way their ancestors were treated by the British.

As the Indian Express reports:

The passengers say the real ordeal started after the aircraft with 168 passengers and 12 cabin crew, landed in Paris. According to Sen Gupta, all passengers were taken to the airport’s E terminal and those with European, American or Canadian passports put on a bus and taken to nearby hotels but those without transit visas were made to wait inside the terminal by Air France staff who said they were trying to arrange transit visas through the local police. Half past midnight, they were told the police had refused the transit visas.

After being refused transit visas they were not able to even use the airport lounge. “There was another security check that did not allow us to carry water bottles,” said Vinita. Kachru said they had to raise a hue and cry for water.

Apparently, an Indian carrying bottled water is a security threat. That's because a lot of Indians look like those scary brown terrorisors they show on TV. Also, no one really understood Slumdog Millionaire in France. They kept wondering what was the big deal about jumping into a pile of human crap anyway?

That's what they usually do there on Wednesdays.

What? I'm sure they have a good reason for that. It must be detoxifying technique or something.

Also, to be fair, it's France. Even harmless little poodles are classified as a threat to national security.

Moving on, according to the ToI:

They were confined to a lounge with too few seats, so many sat on the floor. There was one loo for 55 people. "We were only given a sandwich and a bottle of water each," said passenger Kalashree Sengupta. The passengers alleged that when some of them protested the long delay, an airline official threatened to hand them over to the police.

So the passengers were meted out the same treatment usually reserved for overcrowded weddings and BPO fresher interview sessions. 

Responding to the complaints, Air France said that "Fuck it, we're French. If we cared for what other people thought, we would have started using deodorant sixty years ago. And when you have a first lady as hot as ours, you can fucking do anything you like".

Okay. That's not exactly what they said. But I'm sure that's what they meant.

Uh-oh.

Pardon my French?

10 comments:

Indian John Doe said...

And we thought that racism was coming to an end...

ROFL on the human crap and first lady part :)

Anonymous said...
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RukmaniRam said...

I think the anon comment above is funnier than the post.

Anonymous said...
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Over Rated said...

@IJD: LOL, I think we would need a few hundred years to get rid of racism!

@RR: Yes, I know! But turns out, the little shit was serious! LMAO!

Prats said...

This is seriously WTF.

But seriously Speaking French being racist. Racism is done by superior race to the inferior race rght?? How French can be racist esp in an era after World War 2:-)

Mahesh said...

We flew on Airfrance from Chennai to Toronto in January, and had the same experience. I was amused to hear that they go through the same facade of 'getting transit visas'. Since I also gave them my passport, and about 6 hours later someone came out of the back room to say "the visas have all been rejected"- with no explanation whatsoever. The rest of the story was essentially identical. I've decided never to fly via Paris if I possibly can!

ess said...

Somehow it feels good to watch France-bashing Monty Python videos after reading stuff like this. See if you can find the one of a man with a tape-recorder up his nose.

Don't get me wrong. The Brits are racist like hell as well. But it's fun when europeans insult each other!

Over Rated said...

@Prats: Well, the French can be a bit of a bitch most of the time. Except when it comes to winning a war ... The only war they won was the war on deodorant!

@Mahesh: I had a bad exp in Paris too once! Those people will never learn!

@ess: Oh, there is a lot of French bashing in Fawlty towers too!! And I especially like Robin William's bit about the French.

Anonymous said...

I saw Kalashree and her mom on some news. Like mother like daughter. They both are hysterical bitches. Feel sorry dady.

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