No compensation for ‘bomb suspect' who missed flight
The Local - [email protected]
Published: 8 Aug, 2016 CET.
Updated: Mon 8 Aug 2016 12:28 CET
Geneva airport has refused to compensate a Frenchwoman who missed her flight after airport officials mistook an item in her luggage for a bomb, according to reports.
The incident happened on July 17th when the 31-year-old French woman, who lives in Geneva, arrived at the Swiss city’s Cointrin airport to catch a flight to Spain that was leaving 40 minutes later, reported daily 20 Minutes.
But at security, she was detained after a suspicious item was seen on x-ray in her bag.
Police, firemen and bomb disposal experts were called to the scene and the whole area was evacuated, said the paper.
Under x-ray, the item looked like a detonator for explosives, an airport spokesman told the paper.
“We couldn’t open the bag risking that it contained a bomb,” he said.
“The reaction of the officers was the right one.”
Some 90 minutes later the suspicious item was revealed to be... a DVD player.
The woman was released, but it was too late to catch her flight.
“I don’t blame them for the security measures, but after having mistaken me for a terrorist they just left me there without telling me what to do,” the woman told 20 Minutes.
And now her request for the airport to pay the 150 francs she had to stump up for a new flight has been refused.
It’s up to the airport to decide on compensation in a case by case basis.
In this case, the woman “arrived too late and did not take the electronic items out of her bag,” the airport spokesman told the paper.
Being an ex-employee of the airport herself, she “should have known the rules,” he added.
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The incident happened on July 17th when the 31-year-old French woman, who lives in Geneva, arrived at the Swiss city’s Cointrin airport to catch a flight to Spain that was leaving 40 minutes later, reported daily 20 Minutes.
But at security, she was detained after a suspicious item was seen on x-ray in her bag.
Police, firemen and bomb disposal experts were called to the scene and the whole area was evacuated, said the paper.
Under x-ray, the item looked like a detonator for explosives, an airport spokesman told the paper.
“We couldn’t open the bag risking that it contained a bomb,” he said.
“The reaction of the officers was the right one.”
Some 90 minutes later the suspicious item was revealed to be... a DVD player.
The woman was released, but it was too late to catch her flight.
“I don’t blame them for the security measures, but after having mistaken me for a terrorist they just left me there without telling me what to do,” the woman told 20 Minutes.
And now her request for the airport to pay the 150 francs she had to stump up for a new flight has been refused.
It’s up to the airport to decide on compensation in a case by case basis.
In this case, the woman “arrived too late and did not take the electronic items out of her bag,” the airport spokesman told the paper.
Being an ex-employee of the airport herself, she “should have known the rules,” he added.
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