UTair Airlines was held administratively liable for forcing the mother of two disabled children to purchase 11 tickets for a flight from Kurgan to Moscow, TASS reports citing a source in the Ural Transport Prosecutor’s Office. The airline fined a total of 50 thousand rubles. (approximately 760 USD). Natalya Zagumennaya, a resident of the city of Vyazemsky in the Khabarovsk region of Russia , was forced to pay several times more for her flight from Kurgan to Moscow, as her two sons with cerebral palsy were flying with plaster legs after an operation. One child had both legs in a cast, so the airline demanded that they pay 9 places to install a stretcher in the cabin. The other child had only one leg plastered, but since it did not bend, the cost of the flight for him increased one and a half times.
Neither requests, nor tears, nor documents on the disability of the children touched the airline employees. As a result, the flight cost the mother 60 thousand rubles. instead of 16 000.
The Surgut Transport Prosecutor’s Office opened two administrative cases against Utair. The prosecutor’s office suggested the airline’s general director returns the unreasonably received money for 11 tickets. However, representatives of the airline said that there were no violations in the actions of its employees. The Ural Transport Prosecutor’s Office concluded that there were violations.
