[Resolved]  Spice Jet Airlines — Overcharging and inappropriate cancellation of Flight

Dear sir,

I planned my travel from SPICEJET on 22nd Feb 2008 from london in order to meet family for holi, and made the appropriate booking via an agent in Mumbai. I bought the tickets for flights from Mumbai to Delhi and then 'Delhi to Gorakhpur'.

The flight from Mumbai to Delhi went well as per schedule without any problems, however the flight from Delhi to Gorakhpur, originally planned for 1320 was initially delayed by 20mins (when i checked in). However the flight kept on getting delayed by 20mins, till we were informed at 1500hrs that flight has been cancelled (due to fluid leakage or Airforce not allowing the flight to land at Gorakhpur).

This was shocking and airlines officials were not willing to provide alternate arrangements. we were told that only other option was to take the flight at 200hrs to Lucknow and then a road journey after that. However no refund was provided to us, no lunch (only airports snaks were given at 1630hrs). The ticket fare from Delhi to is nearly 3K Rs and road journey is around 150rs (600rs for single person, but airline made 4 people share the cab).


Sir, if not for the holi season (I had travelled from London to India only to join the family for Holi) I would not have undertaken the travel and surely would have cancelled the ticket and travelled via Train (Vaishali leaves delhi in evening).
I feel cheated by airline and request you to investigate ask airlines to refund the extra 5350rs for my ticket along with the compensation for delay/inconveince caused to customers.

Note:- Following interesting points I found out whilst at airport:
a) There is a flight to Lucknow from Delhi (not SPICEJET though) at 1430, so most of the passengers would have taken that flight and because of this reason, SPICEJET officials delayed the flight to 1530hrs and anounced the cancellation only at 1500hrs.
b) The flight to lucknow at 2000hrs was nearly 50% empty even after accomodating the passengers for Gorakhpur.
(Above facts do make me think that this may have been a delibrate on part of the SPICEJET officials to delay the flight; I have been told that this happens much more frequent than normally! However we as customers are stranded, cheated and robbed in daylight!). My simple calculation shows that airlines made a profit of nearly 400K Rs (i.e. 8K rs (ticket price) * 50 (number of passengers)) as there lucknow flight was empty!

Can you please investigate the incident and respond as appropriate?

Many thanks,