Air India — Cancellation and customer service

Address:

ig119ef

Dear customer services

We were booked on to flight ai115 with air india which was supposed to leave at 5.25am on the 20th august. there were three passengers booked together, rumina javed, caitlin morgan and asiya khanom. our ticket numbers were[protected],[protected] and[protected].
Our booking was made in london via a travel agents and in india we were touring so did not always have access to wi-fi or phone signal.
As stated previously we were doing a tour of india and the night before the flight we were in jaipur. we had left with plenty of time in case of traffic and we arrived at the airport at 12.00am. when we showed our tickets to the guard at the airport entrance, he said we were too early and refused to let us in. we explained that we had just driven down from jaipur and also caitlin was ill, he then let us in. upon entering the airport, we checked for our flight information to see if any information was up yet on the screen stating flight ai115 leaves at 5.25am and to proceed to row g.
We thought that we would attempt to check in early as one of our travel companions – caitlin morgan was severely ill, was throwing up all night and needed to be resting.
We joined the queue and caitlin had to leave the queue to be sick. this was quite distressing for her and also for us as her friends. we desperately wanted to get inside and find a place for her to rest until our flight as we theoretically had 5 hours at this point until our flight.
We handed the check in staff our e-tickets and our passports. he started scanning and organising the boarding passes. we had a small discussion about the luggage at this stage. we wanted all the luggage to be grouped together under one name – rumina javed. the check in staff at this point was being distracted by his friend who came over to release him for his break. they had a light hearted discussion and the check in staff continued to print off our passes, he also discarded and ripped up some other boarding passes which we assumed were a mistake. once the boarding passes were printed, he passed them over to us. there was no mention that our flight number and time had changed or what time our flight was. the e-ticket we handed in quoted flight number ai115.
We checked our names and slotted each of the passes into the matching passport. we did not spot that the flight numbers were not matching at this point. there was no reason to be feeling cautious or anything at this stage as there hadn’t been any mention of cancellations or changes. also the flight was still showing on the departures screen and didn’t say that there were any issues e. g. delays or cancelations.
Caitlin was still feeling very weak at this stage and the security queues were quite long. so we focussed on getting through the security process and finding a place for her to rest.
After an hour of going through security when it was approximately just over 3 hours before the ai115 (5.25am) flight, we started to look for gate information and checking the boarding pass. we realised at this point that the boarding pass did not match the flight we were supposed to be on. we automatically assumed we were given these boarding pass in error so we gathered all the boarding passes together and went to find staff who could help us. at the point, the flight information was still showing on the departures screen and it did not say ‘cancelled’ or anything to alert us to the fact that the flight was not active. we assumed that the check in staff had made an error because we were so early to the airport.
Around 2.30am, we went to the information desk and they told us that the flight ai115 that we were supposed to be on was cancelled. they then said to go to gate 11 to find air india staff. we went over there but didn’t find anyone there, then someone guided us to gate 18 where we found some staff. they told us that the flight that we were booked on had left. we were very confused. they told us that we were being negligent in missing the flight. we explained to them that we did not know we were supposed to be on the earlier flight. we showed them the tickets that said we were supposed to be on the 5.25 ai115 flight and they told us that the flight had been cancelled a few days ago. we showed them that it was still up on the screens and they said that this was the airport managements fault as air india had notified the airport that the flight was no longer active.
We explained that we were not told that we were supposed to be on the earlier flight and the staff told us that it was the duty of the check in staff to fully explain that the flight had been cancelled and we were put on the earlier flight. we had not been told any of this information or told when the new flight even departs. the staff at air india at this stage were very sympathetic to our case and could see that we were completely unaware of the fact that our flight times had been altered.
We were assigned a staff member to take us through security and immigration as we had to exit the secure area. they kept reassuring us that we could get the next flight as they could see that caitlin was very unwell, which was a 9:00 am ba and that we would be able to wait in a lounge.
During the whole time we were trying to get through security and immigration, we kept pointing out to the staff that the cancelled a115was still showing on the screen and it still did not say cancelled. they accepted that this would cause confusion and again blamed the airport management for the error. they said that air india had let the airport know a few days ago. other airlines however, had flights that were cancelled or delayed that showed up on the screen accurately.
When we got back to the check in desk where the night manager was, the staff that were assigned to us explained what had happened. the night manager immediately blamed us for missing our flight and refused to listen to us. we tried to explain that we were not told that the flight had been changed / cancelled. at this point he accused us of lying. there was no sympathy for our plight. he was talking over us and being extremely rude. he was talking about us in hindi without realising that we understood him. this was the worst experience of customer service we had faced in our lives.
The night manager insisted that we knew that the flight had been changed and we missed the flight on purpose or that we had been sleeping. we told them we had not been notified of the changes in the flight, once again the manager insisted that the company had contacted us and that we were lying. when we tried telling him that the check in staff did not tell us clearly what flight we were on, he said that was impossible. once again implying that we were lying.
The manager walked off and we carried on talking to other staff. these staff then claimed that we weren’t told of the flight cancellation because we didn’t have a local number. staff were generally being contradictory with what they were saying and one also said that we were booked on to the ai161 all along. we had to produce our original tickets as proof to show that we were supposed to be on the ai115 flight.
A senior staff member came to speak to us, her name was hansini. she listened to us briefly before cutting us off and said, ‘because of you the flight was delayed, because you were sleeping’. we told her we were not sleeping but she kept saying we were all sleeping and they had made announcements and we hadn’t heard the announcements because of this and so she could do nothing for us because we had missed the flight from negligence and due care. she said to caitlin, ‘look at your eyes, you were definitely sleeping’. caitlin as we have previously stated, was extremely unwell and that would have showed in her eyes. she was resting but she was not sleeping as she was still vomiting frequently at this point. hansili was extremely accusatory. she had no manners at all and literally pointed her fingers at us. she walked away when caitlin was speaking to her, caitlin then had to run after her so she could finish what she was saying. this kind of behaviour is expected from a cowboy outfit perhaps or a new start-up company or a cheap budget company. not india’s leading national carrier. she stated that because o[censored]s the flight had delayed by 10 minutes. we had heard earlier that it was 5 minutes. later on we heard someone saying 20 minutes. this seemed like a classic example of how air india was all about the creative use of truth.
Some of the staff members claimed that there were multiple announcements made calling out our names at the airport. this was certainly not the case as we were walking around the shops and did not hear any announcements calling out our names.in addition to this, the airport itself is a silent airport, so it is unlikely that there would have been announcements.
Throughout this whole time of discussing what had happened, staff at air india did not once offer us a solution. they just wanted to blame us for it and refuse to take part in anything more. we were passed from staff to staff in varying departments. we heard contradictory information, lies and consistently terrible customer service.
We were eventually sent to the customer service desk to get tickets. we assumed at this point that they would be complimentary tickets, however, the staff at customer services said they could not provide complimentary tickets as we had missed the flight as a result of our own negligence.
The service that we were receiving from air india was appalling. it seemed as though they had not been trained in basic customer services and etiquette. we caught out so many of the staff with lying to us and speaking in hindi about us. while two o[censored]s had a basic grasp of hindi, the third person within our group could not speak any of the language and it would be extremely unprofessional to be having a discussion whereby you end up excluding your customer. they were caught out saying contradictory things also to us. a clear example of this sort of practice was from neeta kohli who said she could prove that air india had contacted rumina javed about the flight being changed. she confidently boasted that she would get a printout should we require it and it was right in front of her that we had been contacted. she did not produce the said printout and later on when her senior colleague was going through our records we could hear a discussion taking place about how we were not contacted at all. neeta kohli was then called over and questioned.
This sort o[censored]nprofessional behaviour was spotted time and time again from managers and service staff again and again. the majority of the staff members we came across showed no empathy or compassion. they approached us their mind clearly made up. they would not even want to listen to our side of the events that had led us to miss our flight.
We were made to wait around for an hour and half for the general manager. this was mr sharma. however, he appeared to have zero influence over proceedings. we thought perhaps he might offer us a solution that nobody at air india could even attempt to do. he was having to call up other people to explain our plight and then he called over another manager whose name we did not take down saw us and the first thing he said was ‘yes, yes. i have heard your story all morning. there is nothing to be done. crying here is no good. walking around here and there will be no good. we cannot help you’. we found this as an opening sentence from a manager to be outright appalling and quite bizarre. the tone he adopted was very accusatory, as though we had missed our flights on purpose and were trying to manipulate air india. it was very dismissive, yet again nobody was listening to our plight and made us feel very small.
Throughout our time we saw at least seven other people who were not notified that their flights were cancelled also. we saw they were given replacement flights for free. this was galling to see.
There was at no point any attempt at an apology from staff at air india’s catalogue of errors. instead their sole task was blaming us and pointing the fingers at us. we were amazed that the accusation seemed to be that we had purposefully missed our flight. it is completely illogical that we would choose to do this. with caitlin being so ill, we would’ve been glad to her that we were on an earlier flight and that we were getting home sooner.
We need to make this one point very clear. at no point during check in were we told when our flight was and that our previous flight had been cancelled. for this reason we assumed that everything was taking place as we had originally booked and as our ticket showed. the ai115 5.25am flight information was showing on the departures screen as normal throughout the time we waited at the airport. when we spotted the different boarding time, we assumed that the boarding passes were given to us in error.
We were left to arrange our own flights back, nobody from air india would help us with this. there were no discounts offered. no food or water offered for the 14 hours that we were at the airport. we had to borrow money from asiya’s brother back in london who stayed up all night to arrange a flight back for us as we could not do this with our phones and slow wi-fi network. also when we got a quote for flights initially we were quoted between 35, 000 and 40, 000 per person then we were told it would be 85, 000 rupeees at the counter. only these premium priced tickets were offered to us, nothing at the basic rate.
At the end when we were trying to leave the airport we had to speak to more air india staff. at this point, we met two members of staff (amrita singh and aneesh a.) who were the first decent staff members that we had come across. they were very sympathetic and tried to resolve the issue for us. however, they were told that in our records we were listed as people who has missed their gate and so would not be offered any more help from air india. they stated that they frequently received complaints about the morning staff and their refusal to help customers.
If this letter feels long, it is because we went through so much. we were at the airport for a total 14 hours. we met over 20 staff. we were walking back and forth multiple times.
We demand compensation from air india. we need to be compensated also for the time that we have spent on this matter. the 14 hours that we have spent at the airport. we need to be compensated also for emotional distress that was caused by the staff at air india. we will be sending this letter to the newspapers and the ombudsman services if we do not get our issue resolved. also we will be writing to the ceo of the company and anyone else that we can think of. we will not stop speaking out until air india resolves this case to our satisfaction.
We had to spend an additional £1800 on flights, hotel stay, cab transfers and food. also this has cost us an additional two days in time.
Yours sincerely


Rumina javed
[protected]