Mumbai: Flyers bearing Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad's name have been suffering due to the curbs imposed by domestic airlines on the parliamentarian, his close aide said.
He also said that the Shiv Sena MP won't book a flight ticket till the matter was resolved by the Parliament and his party.
"Gaikwad won't ever book a flight ticket till the issue is resolved by the Parliament, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Shiv Sena party," the Sena MP's aide told PTI over phone from Gaikwad's hometown Omerga in Osmanabad district.
"After the infamous Pune-Delhi flight, Ravi Sir (Gaikwad) booked flight tickets only three times and all were cancelled owing to the unjust curbs imposed by the airlines.
"The fourth and last ticket he booked was for an 8 AM flight from Mumbai to Delhi and that was also cancelled. He did not book any ticket after that. All this talk of his being on a flight ticket booking spree is a ploy to malign him and we condemn such tactics," the aide said.
The tickets were booked by the Sena MP's namesake who is bearing the brunt of the mistaken identity, he said.
"The airline companies do not have any mechanism to distinguish between the namesakes and as a result, innocent flyers are being inconvenienced," he said.
A grave injustice has been heaped on Gaikwad, who now has the "dubious distinction of being the first person to be ever grounded by scheduled Indian air carriers," the aide added.
The clarification comes after recent reports that Gaikwad made at least four vain attempts to fly to Delhi using several permutations and combinations of the titles and initials of his names.
It was also reported that Air India detected this by either cancelling the bookings or not allowing them to be made.
Gaikwad has been barred from flying by domestic airlines for assaulting an Air India staffer recently.
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