[Resolved]  Spice Jet Airlines — DENIED BOARDING TO WHEELCHAIR PASSENGER AND INFANT

Address:

Pune, Maharashtra

On the 27th of May 2012, we were to travel by SpiceJet flight SG-227 from Pune to Bangalore, scheduled to leave Pune at 06:45am. We were traveling with our 83 year old grandmother, requiring wheelchair assistance and our 4-month old infant in arms. We arrived at SpiceJet ticket counter at 06:05am, and requested Ms. Pallavi Wagh at the counter to get wheelchair for our grandmother.

We arrived at the baggage screening at 06:10am after waiting for wheelchair outside. We were told by Mr Ashish Kumar at the SpiceJet baggage screening that the counter had closed and that he will speak to the Pilot. After waiting for 10mins doing nothing, at 06:20am he told that "pilot has denied" to add more passengers to the flight. We reminded Ashish that we were traveling with an 83 year old lady and a 4-month old infant, and that we were waiting outside but no consideration was given.

We requested the name of the pilot who refused to allow us to board but were refused citing policy by Ms Sandhya and Mr Ashish Kumar (both ofSpiceJet). Mr Ashish Kumar was also extremely rude to us. We later learnt that there is no such policy - confirmed by SpiceJet themselves - so the Mr Kumar also blatantly "lied" to us!!!!

As a general concept of Equal Access, disabled persons should have rules/considerations that make it equally easy for them to take a flight. Instead -Mr Ashish told us that for wheelchair access the counter closes 60min prior (instead of 45min prior for normal passengers). This is ANTI-DISABLED-EQUAL-ACCESS!!! It should be the other way round, shouldn't it? It is completely stupid to say that "You know you have a disabled person traveling with you so you should have come 2hours early". Mr Kumar stated that they were "doing a favor" by providing wheelchair in the first place. In his own words " This makes SpiceJet look like a world bus service, not an aspiring airline".

Thanks to the absolute lack of consideration and zero assistance provided to an elderly woman - we were forced to rebook and take the only other available flight that day which was an AirIndia flight departing at 3:20pm and flying via Hyderabad. So we had to go back from Pune airport - with our elderly grandmother and infant - and return again in the afternoon, and take the longer 3-hour 1-stop flight. One can only imagine how strenuous this proved to be.

We are highly anguished and infuriated that SpiceJet believes providing assistance to less-able bodied passengers is a burden and makes them a "bus service". SpiceJet has zero policies to deal fairly with disabled passengers . On top of that, the official representing the airline, Mr Ashish Kumar, was rude and irrational. All in all, our experience with the airline was a total nightmare - SpiceJet is a pathetic airline and the behavior of their groundstaff is deplorable.