Socialite Waris Ahluwalia prevented from boarding a flight because he was wearing a turban
On Monday, The Grand Budapest Hotel star and frequent attendee of the ASmallWorld social network’s social events was barred from boarding an Aeromexico flight from Mexico City to New York because he refused to remove his turban.
In response to being told he would have to fly with a different airline, the Sikh-American star and socialite took to Instagram and wrote: “Dear NYC fashion week, I may be a little late as @aeromexico won’t let me fly with a turban. Don’t start the show without me”. He then added: “Update. 13 hours later. Still in Mexcio City. No traveler should be subjected to what I was today. All we’re asking for from @aeromexico is an apology and education/training of the staff”.
Whilst 7,628 people liked Mr Ahluwalia’s second post, one Instagrammer, @konry77, commented:
“He plays roles in movies (where everybody in the world can see him) with no turban but he cannot remove it for few seconds to follow international laws regarding the security! It looks suspicious. He does not wear it for movie money but he pretends to wear it to get a bit of popularity… He can stay in Mexico for long [sic]”.
Ahluwalia subsequently appeared on CNN with Christiane Amanpour to discuss the matter and announced he’d received an apology from Aeromexico. In a statement, the airline remarked:
“Aeromexico recognizes and is proud of the diversity of its passengers. We apologize to Mr. Waris Ahluwalia for the bad experience he went through with one of our security personnel”.
The actor will now fly to New York today, Wednesday.
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