New Delhi: Kuwait Airways has been ordered by a consumer court in New Delhi to pay Rs 54,700 to a 78- year-old woman suffering from heart ailment for putting her through a gruelling ordeal at New York airport after the flight, which brought her there, arrived late for its connecting flight to New Delhi.

The airlines' attempt to pass the buck to the delayed flight, which took her to New York was not taken kindly by the New Delhi consumer disputes redressal forum, which observed that "it is almost a cruel attitude on the part of Kuwait Airways to leave stranded the woman at New York airport by not providing any help."

"It is really a trauma for her to be stranded in a foreign land without any money. Somehow, with great difficulty, she was able to contact her son who came from Dallas (USA) to provide her the amount for the new ticket," forum President L C Jain and member Janak Juneja said in their order.

The forum directed the carrier to shell out Rs 29,700 to the complainant Krishna Mediratta for not accommodating her in their next flight forcing her to purchase a fresh ticket for the journey to New Delhi.

Noting that Kuwait Airways had not arranged any shelter for her at the airport to spend the night, the forum also asked it to cough up Rs 20,000 for the mental pain and agony underwent by her along with litigation cost Rs 5000.

Mediratta, who was on a trip to Boston, had contended that she had boarded the American Airlines flight to New York as arranged by Kuwait Airways, which in fact issued the ticket for the journey.

PTI