Air India Flies Planes Too Small For Baggage

Kolkata, May 14 -- Over the past week, no less than 328 baggages booked on an Air India flight from Delhi to Kolkata couldn't touch base at the city airport on time. Reason: The national carrier has been plying an aircraft much smaller than the one scheduled to fly on the route.

Wary of compensation in the event of an inordinate delay in the arrival of baggages, the carrier made the fliers wait for a good 3-7 hours at the airport as they brought the baggages in two subsequent flights from the capital.

"We normally fly an Airbus 330 on this route, but had to briefly withdraw the aircraft for reasons of routine maintenance. We have instead been flying the Airbus 320, which is a lot smaller in size. Since the 320 has less space for lugging cargo, we had cut down on baggages," an Air India official told HT.

The baggage woes, which had been dogging the fliers since May 5, reached the proverbial tipping point on May 7 when airline officials had to hold back 146 pieces of luggage of 147 passengers at the Delhi airport. The baggages later arrived on two AI flights.

As per rules guiding airlines, a foreign passport holder is to be paid a compensation of around R4,000 in the event of a delay in the arrival of baggage. For Indian passport holders, the carriers are mandated to shell out the cab fare to the affected fliers who are to report to the airport on a given day to collect their luggage.

"Since most of the passengers waited out at the airport and collected their baggages later, they weren't liable to be compensated. However, for some outstation passengers who left the airport without their baggages, we hired an agency to have their belongings delivered at home. The agency hasn't yet billed us for delivering those baggages," said the AI official.

While the Airbus 330 can seat 279 passengers, the 320 variant can fly no more than 168. Every aircraft has a regulated takeoff weight beyond which it is not deemed safe for flight, said airline officials.

"Another reason why the baggage issue persisted for so long was that the flight also flies passengers on the London-Kolkata route. And most of these overseas passengers tend to pack heavy, thereby forcing us to cut down on baggages. Secondly, this being the season for Nor'westers, we need to carry more fuel on board to budget for possible diversions," a senior AI official said.

However, despite AI's defense, the passengers said the airline didn't send out any prior word on the matter and hence can't escape blame.

"I got to know of the problem only after arriving at the conveyor belt and finding my baggage missing. If they had left me a prior word, I could have switched to another flight. Having us wait for three hours at the airport could have been avoided," Shruti Jain, one of the affected passengers. Published by HT Syndication with permission from HT Kolkata. For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at [email protected]

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