First, kudos to former Indian President Abdul Kalam for putting up with the frisking by staff of Continental Airlines on Indian soil before he boarded a flight to Newark. But being a "Mr Nice Guy" always can perpetuate nonsense and promote arrogance. Unless we stand up for our rights, we are going to be taken advantage of. In this instance, Dr Kalam, as a former President, was protected by Indian protocol against such security measures.

Continental's action was thus in violation of the laws of the country. It is not as if Continental was not aware of it. Indian security officials had pointed the exemption out to the Continental staff who ignored that and proceeded to frisk one of India's most respected Presidents ever. It is thus clear that it was a wilful violation of the laws of the ground.

No Reply to India's Notice: Worse, it appears that when the Indian government issued a show-cause notice to Continental, the latter did not bother to reply to it. But when the media raised a ruckus over it, and after the government filed a police complaint against it, Continental proffered a reluctant apology even while cloaking it with the excuse that they were merely abiding by the rules laid down by the U.S.  Their action contravened Indian laws on Indian soil, so they are liable for prosecution.

Rather than shamelessly gloat over the visit of Hillary Clinton, India must act tough and take stern action against Continental. Or else, India will have to face the criticism of being soft because the luminary involved was a Muslim.

This is a serious issue and I will go to the extent of calling for a ban on Continental in India. In any case, Continental is a hopeless airline -- easily one of the worst airlines I have travelled in. I wonder why Dr Kalam chose to fly Continental, even Air India will have been better!!

My Bad Experience with Continental: I had a very bad experience with Continental in May 2007 when I visited Savannah for a conference. I had been booked on a 6.15 pm flight from Savannah to Newark. But, on reaching the Savannah airport, I was told the flight had been cancelled. They offered me a ticket on another flight that had a stop in Atlanta before reaching New York at 10.30pm. This was unacceptable to me as I had a connecting flight in New York at 10.50pm. But the Continental counter staff refused to listen to me, saying I had no other option. It was only after I blew my top and created a scene there that they relented and started exploring other options and eventually found me a seat on a flight from another airline.

But that meant I would land at La Guardia from where I had to pay US$ 120 for a taxi ride to the Newark Airport. Importantly, because I had changed my flight, the security staff at Newark subjected me to additional screening before clearing me. "When someone changes a flight at the last minute, that raises an alarm bell for us," the security official told me. I could understand that as a bomb threat at the JFK airport had been thwarted only days earlier.

Anyway, the inconveniece I was put to was because of inefficient service from Continental. On reaching Singapore I sent a stinker to Continental. Not surprisingly, it must have landed in their dustbin as there was no response from them.

I wrote about this experience in my blog on June 7, 2007. I had then mentioned that "when dealing with Asians, they (Americans) think they have a right to goof up and not apologize. But Dr Kalam's experience shows they assume they have a right to flout the laws of every country other than their own and get away with it.

The least India can do to salvage some pride is to ban the airline from Indian skies for its deliberate attack on our dignity. We should have some spine and do that even if Obama offers an apology to India and to Dr Kalam. More information on the incident is available at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/prpoint/message/4092 

-- G Joslin Vethakumar