New Delhi, March 30 -- Air India, Jet Airways and Spice Jet had the maximum number of complaints registered against them from unhappy passengers last year. JetLite and Indigo are fourth and fifth on the list, while Go Air had the fewest complaints. All these complaints were made to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
The National Consumer Helpline (NCH), the consumer grievances redressal forum set up by the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, has noted that the most frequently occurring problems (FOP) faced by air passengers include cancellation, flight rescheduling or delays, poor response while enquiring on phone, misinformation provided by airline staff when called on phone, and non delivery of promised services.
Aggrieved customers are aggressively confronting these practices. Nidhi Mishra, one such passenger, approached the India Consumer Forum, an online portal, after her ticket in SpiceJet was cancelled without any prior information. When she protested upon reaching the airport, she was allegedly humiliated and was asked by a SpiceJet representative to "cry in a corner and leave space for our other passengers".
"My flight was on 26 November. I had cross checked the status of my flight on 24 November with the airline. They informed me that the connecting flight from Hyderabad to Mangalore, SG 1023, had been cancelled. I requested the executive to book me on another flight on the same day and they obliged. In order to avoid any last minute confusion, I made them update the contact information to my personal contact details. I received the revised ticket confirming the booking for 26th from Delhi to Bangalore to Mangalore. My father on the same day called up the airline to enquire about his revised ticket for the 28th and learnt that his ticket was not updated, which was immediately done. On reaching the airport on 26th, I was told that there was no booking in my name and that I was rescheduled to fly on the 28th. When I tried to explain the situation to the airline staff, I was humiliated in front of other passengers. My father and I had to stay in Delhi for two additional days," an agitated Mishra told The Sunday Guardian. "It has been three months but SpiceJet has failed to compensate for the treatment," she added.
Another dissatisfied passenger, Sunil Kumar Dahiya, has been trying to get his money refunded from Air India for over a month. Dahiya had purchased an international ticket on 4 February 2013 from Air India's counter in Terminal 3 of the IGI airport in New Delhi. However, he got the ticket cancelled from the airline's office in Kuwait three days later. On asking for a refund, Dahiya was told that since he had bought the ticket from the IGI airport, the airline would refund him at the carrier's office in New Delhi.
An unhappy Jet customer has posted on Jet's community page on Facebook, "...it happened on 10 April 2012 on the Mumbai to Hong Kong flight. In spite of having a confirmed ticket on their Premier class with a valid web check in, they wanted me to travel in Economy class as the 'flight was overbooked'. The reason given was that the wrong aircraft had left Mumbai for Hong Kong."
Emails sent to Air India, SpiceJet and Jet Airways did not elicit any response at the time the story went into print. Published by HT Syndication with permission from The Sunday Guardian. For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at [email protected]
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