NEW DELHI: The Maharaja had to play host to Masood Rana and Subhash, the two Bangladeshi transit passengers who spent 48 days at IGI Airport’s transit lounge before finally flying back home to Dhaka on April 26, as per aviation rules for the period of their stay at the airport.

Since this place has no ‘cheap’ eatery, the average cost of three meals a day was a cool Rs 2,000. The two had to be sent to hospital three to four times for check-ups under police protection to ensure they returned to the airport. In all, the airline ended up spending about a lakh during this time.

"The two seemed to be labourers who go to the Gulf with dreams of petro-dollar salaries. They got so bored here that they would often request the eatery staff to give them some work – not to earn money, but to pass time! They were quiet people who kept to themselves and never created a scene out of frustration," said a source.

The Bangladeshis’ plight brought to mind the story of Mehran Nasseri who lived in the Paris airport from 8 August 1988 until August of 2006, when he was hospitalised for an unspecified ailment. A serial refugee who fled Shah-ruled Iran in the late 1970s, Nasseri had arrived at the Charles de Gaulle Airport without any papers after being sent back from London airport.

Nasseri’s diary was turned into an autobiography titled The Terminal Man . The story was reportedly the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s film The Terminal , in which Tom Hanks lives at New York’s JFK Airport.

On its part, Air India has patted itself for the ‘humanitarian’ gesture and denies any mistake by its staffers.

"The two took the visa for Saudi Arabia in Dhaka. Ground handling (that includes check-in) for AI at Dhaka international airport is done by the national airline, Biman, and the immigration check is also cleared by local agencies. So there’s no question of our not taking adequate care at Dhaka when the two were checking in," said the spokesperson.

Last July, a French national flew here from Kathmandu as a transit passenger en route to London. But he was found too ‘unsafe’ to be flown by any airline to UK and after he had stayed at IGI for three days, the domestic airline that brought him from Nepal had to take him back under escort to Kathmandu.

- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Air_India_spent_almost_a_lakh_on_the_two_guests/articleshow/1994555.cms

Very interesting but I wonder what exactly happened with these two:)

Yeah, and IGI probably has the worst transit facilities amongst the major airports in the world.