New Delhi, Sept. 9 (PTI): An elderly woman stranded in London airport for five days on her way to Delhi from New York has been awarded over Rs 5 lakh in compensation.

A consumer forum held British Airways guilty of deficiency in service and said Santosh Ahuja, a resident of Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar who had gone to visit her daughters in the US, was the victim of the “whims” of airline staff as no accommodation or assistance was provided to her.

“British Airways should have made arrangements for her stay in a hotel at its own expense. The complainant was not even guided as to where (daily) purchases should be made,” the New Delhi District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum said in a recent order.

The forum asked the airline to pay Rs 5.19 lakh as compensation to Ahuja, saying she was forced to purchase her “daily wear apparel” on all the five days as she was not allowed to collect her luggage. She also had little money.

Ahuja had alleged that in January 2003, she had gone to Tulsa from New Delhi by a British Airways flight and was stranded for a day at New York’s JFK airport. But her woes did not end there as she was stuck for five days at Heathrow airport during her return journey following the cancellation of a connecting flight to New Delhi.