Ethiopian Airlines have tendered an apology to a traveller living with a disability after he was blocked from boarding one of their planes allegedly because of his condition.
On Thursday, the airline took to its Twitter page to defend its standard of service saying the client, Harun Hassan, was not accepted due to miscommunication.
“We’ve been working on the recovery & hope Mr Hassan will accept our apologies & offer. We assure the encounter does not define our standard of service,” read in part the post on Twitter.
Mr. Harun Maalim Hassan booked on ET309/27Aug19, Nairobi-Addis was not accepted due to miscommunication.
We’ve been working on the recovery & hope Mr. Hassan will accept our apologies & offer. We assure the encounter does not define our standard of service.— Ethiopian Airlines (@flyethiopian) August 29, 2019
The latest move comes a day after Harun claimed on his Facebook page that the airline had given him an offer as compensation and coerced him to pull down his posts to avoid putting the airline’s reputation at risk.
“…almost 10 hrs after they denied me the opportunity of flying their airline contacted me for apologies. And they offered me an opportunity of flying their Business Class up to Washington DC.
However, in return, they requested me to pull down my Tweet and FB posts regarding this unfortunate incident because, according to the management, “… unscrupulous others will take undue advantages of this ‘bad publicity,'” posted Harun on Facebook.
Harun further added that he declined the offer on grounds that he was disrespected, denied dignity and that the stand will help in curbing discrimination based on appearance.
“I declined the unsolicited offer. I rather fly Economy class with respect and dignity than flying in a knee jerk inspired comfort of their Business Class,” he added.
He said he will travel on Wednesday(yesterday) with a different line hence raising eyebrows whether the offer by the airline will be viable.
Harun took to Facebook on Tuesday to express frustrations saying the airline violated his rights. According to him, he was blocked from flying after he was told the airline does not have a provision that allows people living with disability to travel alone.
He, however, dismissed the directive saying he had travelled several times with different airlines alone.
The aborted journey with the airline was bound to be his first experience with the company.