By Victoria John
A regular business trip ended in "absolute humiliation" for a Durban woman after she was escorted off a British Airways flight for allegedly not turning off her cellphone.
A flight attendant, who was "having a bad day", asked the sales manager for Merlog Foods, Leisha Ward, to turn off her cellphone three times. The attendant then approached the captain, even though Ward says she had shown the turned-off phone to him.
But British Airways said "that she was unlikely to obey any emergency or safety instruction given by the crew in the event of an emergency and so she was offloaded".
On a 3.30pm flight from Joburg to Durban on September 25, Ward was making a business call "while the passengers were boarding the plane and stowing away their luggage", she said.
She turned her cellphone off when the standard announcement to "switch off cellular phones and electronic equipment" was made. A male flight attendant then said to her: "Must I turn your phone off for you, or must I ask the pilot to turn it off".
Ward approached the flight attendant to ask for his details so she could report the incident to British Airways.
She said the flight attendant ignored her, entered the cockpit, and on returning, said "I will arrange for the door to this aircraft to be opened whereupon you may remove yourself, should you not comply with company rules and regulations by turning your cellphone off."
"I was in absolute shock at what I was hearing, and so totally bewildered that my jaw dropped open," Ward said.
What followed was an announcement from the captain apologising for the delay saying: "We have a passenger on board who is failing to comply with the safety rules and regulations of this aircraft. We will therefore be escorting them off this flight."
Ward arranged to get on a flight back to Durban, landing two-and-a-quarter hours later than the time she needed to be in Durban, whereupon she discovered that her luggage had been sent back to Joburg.