Air France Says Crew Was Arrested and Interrogated for Not Upgrading Politician's Daughter in Argentina

When the daughter of a former justice minister in Argentina demanded to be upgraded to business class on an Air France flight in October, the flight crew was unable to accomodate her. What happened next has become an international incident.

The daughter reportedly filed a complaint. According to the union that represents the cabin crew, who released a statement on Facebook, upon landing in Argentina the crew was “arrested successively by police forces, interrogated under conditions that flout fundamental rights, charged and for some detainees to finally be released without explanation.”

The union wrote a letter to the Argentine Embassy in Paris detailing the conditions under which crew members were held and interrogated, Reuters reported.

If the allegations are true, this would seem like overkill for not liking one’s seat assignment.

The union has been communicating with authorities in both Argentina and France in order to seek out the “the possibilities of legal redress to obtain compensation for the préjudicie suffered by our colleagues and the profession.”

In a statement, the president of Air France-KLM, Jean-Marc Janaillac, “expressed his indignation to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the arbitrary detention conditions that the Air France crew were subjected to.”