Shilpa Shetty accuses Australian airline of racist behavior

Claiming that she faced an unpleasant experience for being ‘brown’ at the Sydney airport by an Australian airline, actress Shilpa Shetty has said that people's tone must not change with preference to colour.

In her Instagram post, the 43-year-old actress narrated how the staff of airline prevented her from checking in her half empty duffel bag and forced her twice to go to the oversized luggage counter.

Shilpa alleged in her post that the behaviour by the airline staff was racially motivated and wanted the Qantas Airways to take notice of the incident.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Subject: #Qantas airways @qantas This should get your attention! Travelling from Sydney to Melbourne and at the check in counter met a grumpy #Mel ( that’s her name)who decided it was “OK” to speak curtly to “US” ( Brown people!!) travelling together ,I was flying business and had 2 bags (my allowance)and she insisted and decided my half empty Duffel bag was oversized( to check in!!) So she sent us to check it in at the other counter dealing with “Oversized luggage” ..there a Polite lady(yes this one was) said ..”this ISN’T an oversized bag, pls check this in manually if u can at another counter” ( all this happening while the counter is going to shut in 5 mins) As the manual check in wasn’t going thru for 5 mins( we tried) I went upto #Mel and requested her to put the bag thru as her colleague said it wasn’t an oversized bag.. She refused again.. Just being adamant especially when I told her this is causing a lot of inconvenience .. We had no time to waste so we ran to the oversized baggage counter and requested her to put the bag through which she did after I told her that #Rude #Mel had issues !!!.... to which another colleague joined in an reiterated my duffle wasn’t oversized and could’ve easily been checked in. The point is .. This piece is only for #quantas airlines to know and take cognisance .. that their staff must be taught to be helpful and TONE can’t change with preference to #COLOUR .”WE” are NOT #pushovers and they MUST know that being #callous and #Rude will NOT BE TOLERATED 🙏✋🏼💔. Ps: Please tell me if that bag in the picture is oversized??!! @australia @visitmelbourne @travel #truthmustbetold #bemused #uncalledfor #standup #equality #whatswrongisnotright #instapic #travelwoes #shocking #nightmare #notcool

A post shared by Shilpa Shetty Kundra (@theshilpashetty) on Sep 22, 2018 at 6:37pm PDT

But that wasn't it, the actress also took to Twitter to share her experience, marking the airlines in the subject. In response to this, the Qantas airline tweeted back apologising for the inconvenience caused.

We're sorry to hear that you have had a negative experience with us today Shilpa. We have passed your feedback on to the relevant team and we hope that you have a great experience with us onboard! Khalid

— Qantas (@Qantas) September 23, 2018

This is not the first time the ‘Dhadkan’ actress has faced the racist behavior. Back in 2007, Shilpa was subjected to racist remarks by the other contestants in the Big Brother house in the UK.