A passenger was offloaded from a Dubai-bound flight at Calcutta airport on Sunday despite having a valid ticket.

Subodh Sarkar, 50, a poet and lecturer of English at a city college, was scheduled to travel to Algeria to participate in a poets’ conference. The Algerian ministry of cultural affairs had sent him an e-ticket, Sarkar said. He was scheduled to take an Emirates flight to Dubai and then a connecting flight of Air Algerie to Algeirs.

Sarkar lodged a complaint with the airport police station against Emirates on Tuesday.

On Sunday, after getting his boarding pass, Sarkar was waiting for immigration clearance when an airline official asked him to step aside. “I was kept waiting for over an hour without any explanation. They also took away my boarding pass and ticket,” said Sarkar.

Later, an airline employee told him he could not fly as he had a ticket of Air Algerie, but there was no record of his scheduled travel with Emirates. “I requested them for a fresh ticket, but they refused,” said Sarkar.

“The PNR could not be matched with a valid e-ticket,” an airline spokesperson said.