Following a report in The Independent of Singapore about the incident, Air Asia responded by saying:
“AirAsia Indonesia is aware of reports of an incident involving a guest on board Flight QZ 508 from Denpasar to Singapore on 9 April 2016. We would like to assure our guests that we take this matter very seriously and a full investigation is underway.
“We would also like to clarify that no passengers were offloaded from the flight in question. AirAsia Indonesia remains committed to ensuring the safety and comfort of all our guests.”
The Independent had carried an open letter from the mother of the child that was posted on AirAsia’s Facebook page. The girl’s friend’s mother, Amanda Sparkles, shared the story of what happened, and the mother’s open letter.
In the letter addressed to Tony Fernandes, the CEO of AirAsia, the mother, who signed off as “a heartbroken mother”, said her daughter Aliya was born with a very rare genetic condition called Ichthyosis.
Ichthyosis, she explained, was very rare and incurable. It is a condition where sweat glands don’t operate. “The manifestation of this is that a Ichthyosis patient cannot control her body temperature and the skin does not produce any moisture. As a result the skin of these patients will appear scaly and red.”
“I taught her to be strong and kind even when she was in incredible pain and the world at times was not kind to her. Aliya has embraced this teaching and managed to cope with life until that fateful AirAsia flight when everything unravelled.”
She claimed that AirAsia staff “asked my little girl to leave the plane because of her appearance and went on to inform me how she would ‘potentially be a threat’ to the other passengers as she may ‘infect’ other passengers.”
“Your staff managed to destroy the belief that I built in my child over the 10 years that the world will not judge her for her appearance but for the content of her character. I was wrong. I was so wrong. My daughter was judged, she was sentenced and her spirit of self-esteem was destroyed because of how she looked.”
She gave details of what transpired on the plane, including the conversation she had with the staff. She said, among other things, that one of the staff rudely asked what was wrong with her daughter and later a ground staff told her: ‘Sorry, we need to ask you to disembark because your daughter is a threat to the other passengers…’
She said Aliya started crying. She ended the letter by asking: “What will you do to mend a child’s broken spirit?”