Air India — disgusting service and maltreatment

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3175

Most disrespectful, upsetting and disgusting travel experience of my life. I and my husband traveled to india from melbourne via bangkok to see his family members in delhi and amritsar. We landed in delhi on 15 july and were to depart delhi on 17 july 2017 to go to amritsar via air india. We had booked the flight on 30 june for 12.15 to fly to amritsar on 17 july. My husband and i reached the airport at lrast 2 hours before check in. We were asked to pau an extra $100 for lugage as it was a domestic flight even though we are international tourusts. It took aur ubdya appxinateky 20 mins to sort out the extra luggage payment while taking my husband to a separate counter/place while i waited for checkin to be completed.
The checkin officer checked our hand luggage and saw we had a delhi duty free bag and said nothing. I asked about the duty free items to carry on board and he said no problem as dury free is excepted.

After checkin we went and sat down and had a green tea. After approximately another half hour we went through our other air india checkin and immigration ana security check and bodyscan. Immigration asked to confirm that my duty free bag held duty free items and i said yes and they didn't ask what and waved me through.

Then all of a sudden at the final final security check i was pulled aside and the security officer called another security officer and told me i cannot take my duty free bag on the plane as i am a domestic passenger. And then another officer was called as i wanted to know why and stated that i was a international traveller and air india never informed me of any duty free no go and so on. I then got emotional and started crying and then said look im going to miss my flight. One security officer said there is a bottle of duty free alcohol i cant take and another officer said it was okay and then it went on with about 4 or 5 security officers speaking only partly in english. Another officer said u wont miss your flight as air india will call for me. The whole time there was no law/information showed to me about duty free and the security officers said it was duty-free staff and air india fault.in the end i went without my duty free items and when i arrived at air india gate to catch the flight it had already left. The staff at the gate said it was my fault as there was a phone call made to me and announcement over speaker - but there was no such thing and then they blamed the security and vice versa. One air india manager stated the duty free items info was on the dangerous goods and prohibited items signage but there was no such thing.

Air india refused to put me and my husband on another flight and refused to give me a refund for the flight and a refund for my duty free items. I called the australian high commission but air india said it was security's fault.

Then i asked for my luggage which they said was not on the amritsar flight and i can have it within an hour. After approximately 4 hours i got my luggage back and had to book and pay for a new flight. Air india kept on telling different stories and by the way my luggage had obviously gone to amritsar and back to delhi as it had the airline tags etc on it.

Cost of my new flight booking from delhi to amritsar cost me inr4414 plus user development fee of 12inr air india flight no. Ai016 departing delhi at 5.15pm and arriving at amritsar at 6.20pm.

I sought help from the airport centre mangement and asked them to help me get in contact with the australian high commission but nothing could be done as air india were still saying it was my fault. The whole time air indta staff kept in referring us to different staff.

It was inhuman and inconsiderate behavior in a country tyat i thought would be nice to holiday in. It only shows that air indya don't care for their own customers and tourists.. I felt deeply upsey c and frustrated and that my rights were violated let alone the non custoner service with securuty stsff laughing at me also. Feeling frustrated... Wasted money and broken holiday.