Harassed, barred from flight over weight mismatch: Flyer
Times of India | 27 November 2025
Kolkata: A Delhi resident has alleged she was harassed and barred from a flight by staffers of a private airline at Kolkata airport on Nov 23 after they claimed her carry-on luggage exceeded the weight limit. The flyer, Amrita Singh, has lodged complaints with airport authorities, the DGCA and the CISF, and voiced her concerns on social media. The airline's Kolkata staff declined to comment.
Singh had booked a ticket from Guwahati to Delhi, but, unable to secure a direct flight at the scheduled time, rebooked on a service from Guwahati to Delhi via Kolkata. She arrived in Kolkata from Guwahati with two pieces of luggage tagged as carry-on.
While queuing at boarding gate 106 for her flight to Delhi, an airline staff member weighed her bags and informed her they exceeded the limit. The staffer asked for an additional payment of Rs 1,500, without which she would be denied boarding. Singh argued that she had travelled from Guwahati to Kolkata on the same airline with the carry-on tags, and questioned how her bag's weight had increased from 7.4 kg in Guwahati to 9.5 kg in Kolkata, leading to a commotion.
The airline allows 7 kg carry-on luggage of a specified size per passenger travelling in economy class.
She then spoke with CISF personnel in Kolkata, who confirmed her bag weighed 7.4 kg while the airline's scale showed 9.5 kg. As a result, the flight departed for Delhi without her. Singh spent the night at the Kolkata airport and took another flight to Delhi the next day, where her bag was again weighed at 7.4 kg. She questioned how the airline's scales could show different weights at different airports and expressed her distress over the incident.
No statement has been issued by the airline so far.
Airport officials said scales needed to be calibrated regularly to ensure they provided accurate reading.
A survey on the issue that had received 36,000 responses from passengers revealed that six out of 10 flyers had one or more instances of discrepancy in bag weight in the past three years.