KUALA LUMPUR: A MAS stewardess who was asked by a pilot to leave a flight while she was on duty has won a defamation suit against him.
M. Subangi, 42, claimed the pilot had a grudge against her and used his position to have her removed from Flight MH4 on Sept 23, 2013.
Sessions Court judge Norliza Othman awarded RM20,000 in damages and a 5% interest to Subangi in her defamation suit against First Officer Ahmad Abid Abdul Hamid.
“The pilot has to issue a letter of apology to the stewardess and MAS within seven days from today (yesterday) for his conduct,” said her lead counsel Sangeet Kaur Deo yesterday.
Sangeet, who was assisted by Jeremy Vinesh, said the judge also awarded RM5,000 in costs.
Subangi, a MAS stewardess for 19 years, said she was grateful for winning the case as she had waited for two years.
“It is not about the money,” she said.
“I just wanted an apology from him.”
In her statement of claim, Subangi said that inflight supervisor Lee Siew Poh told her that Ahmad Abid wanted her to leave the plane without giving her any explanation.
She said she was told that Ahmad Abid would not fly the plane if she was on the flight that day.
The flight, she said, was delayed for an hour because she had to remove her bags.
She claimed that Ahmad Abid had no authority to conduct himself in such a way as the order to evict a person from the flight could only be given by the commander of the flight or MAS with valid reasons.
She said she suffered emotional trauma as she felt she had been bullied as a female crew member.
In her suit filed on Oct 7 last year, Subangi asked for an apology, general damages and aggravated damages for slander.
Subangi withdrew the claim against Lee, who had been named as the second defendant, and called her as one of her witnesses to prove her case.
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