[Resolved]  Air India — Complaint regarding Air India Negligence and Misbehaviour

Address:

Kamrup Metropolitan, Assam

I (Deepanwita Dutta) am a Ph.D. student of IIT Guwahati. I had booked my Air India flight tickets (Gau- Del, Del-Heathrow(London), Heathrow-Del, DEl-Gau) through a travel agent (Jayanta, Jungle travels). I had to attend 2 back to back conferences, one at King's College London from 2-6 Dec, 2014 and another at IITG from 8-12 Dec. 2014. My Del-Gau flight was on 8th Dec 2014 at 11:30 am. But after reaching Delhi at 10:08 am, I was told that the flight has been preponed to 10:30 am and I cannot board the flight as I am late. Even after repeated requests, they didnot allow me. What is more shocking is that the manager on duty that day (with the name Ashok or Arjun or something like that) refused to give me the boarding pass for the next day saying that they couldnot inform me as my contact info was not available with them and it is the sole responsibility of the travel agent to inform me. They were giving tickets for the next day to the other passengers. I had already got the tickets for the next day, but the manager on duty refused me the boarding pass. The travel agent people also gave similar answer saying that it is the fault of the airline. I had given my contact details and email address to the travel agent. The entire day (upto 4:00 pm, this can be checked from the register at Delhi Airport) I was at the Airport running from Gate no 1 to E block. I want to know where is my fault in the entire episode. And why the flight needed to preponed? How am I to know about that ? Is it not the duty of Air India to care for the customers and make other arrangements. Only one seat was available at Spice Jet that day : price was 27, 000. The minimum fare for the next 2 days was arround 36, 000 (only available in Air India). Is it possible for a student to pay such a huge money after spending so much money on Accomodation at London. My question is what arrangements the Airlines had made for my stay ? Isn't my security their responsibility. As a result of whims of some Air India officials (particularly the manager on duty that day) I had to suffer. I missed my Conference. Who will bear the flight ticket cost + Conference fees that I missed = 15, 000 + 4000 ? Why should I bear the loss with no fault of mine ? From whom I should demand the compensation? DAE conference is a very prestigious conference held once every 2 years. My Ph.D. defence was arranged on 15th Dec. and my supervisor had to go on leave 2 days later (on 17th). So, I was about to get my degree after my supervisor sign my my final thesis. But though I defended my thesis, I couldnot get time to hard bind my thesis before 17th. So, I have to wait for 1 more month to get my degree. We have to travel by Air India as we have no other option. We receive DAE funding for Air fare (only if we board, that also one time) and this is the DAE criteria. Air India should take care that mostly students and govt. officials use this flight. So, if the schedule is changed entire plan gets changed. I wrote the statement made by the Manager in a paper. I had taken the Air India stamp at the paper. I am going to file an RTI asking who was responsible for this (my problem) : Air India, the travel agent or I myself.