Thirty players of AMMA Kerala Strikers, the celebrity cricket team of Malayalam film stars, and their managers were on Friday forced out of a Kochi-Hyderabad Indigo Airline flight at Kochi airport after they allegedly misbehaved with an airhostess and created unruly scenes on board.
The team was on its way to Hyderabad to play in a Celebrity Cricket league match on Saturday afternoon. According to the airline company, the film stars had misbehaved with the airhostess when she was explaining air safety measures to the passengers just before takeoff from Kochi. The air hostess complained to the flight captain who ordered the celebrities out of the plane.
However, the film stars denied the charge saying that all they had done was to cheer themselves up with applause "as we were on the trip for a cricket match" and said that the airhostess had reacted to this arrogantly. "The captain had acted unilaterally on her complaint without listening to our version," actor Bineesh Kodiyeri, son of CPI(M) leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, said.
According to one version, the Strikers members applauded and shouted when the airhostess explained safety procedures and misbehaved with her personally when she asked them to remain calm. Following this, the captain asked the team members to apologise. He ordered them out of the plane when they refused to do that, it is said. However, Edavela Babu, one of the Strikers team managers, said that the team members had got out of the plane due to the bad behavior of the airline company's crew. "We had done nothing wrong. You can ask the other passengers. In fact, some of our co-passengers even tried to intervene in the matter on our behalf," he claimed.
It was also alleged that one of the Strikers members had even tried to misbehave with the airhostess personally. Sources said that Indigo Airline could file a formal complaint with the Airports Authority against the Strikers over the matter while the team members said they had already lodged a complaint. "Do you think some airline crew can throw celebrities like us out of a plane just like thatIJ That too in KochiIJ" asked Bineesh Kodiyeri. "We had remained on board for about half an hour but then decided to come out of the plane thinking it was our duty not to cause trouble for other passengers," he added.