Air India — flight delay for more than 6 hours

Address:

Mumbai City, Maharashtra

Ms. Anju sahani

I had booked a business class ticket for mumbai - hong kong - mumbai. My travel details are as under:

Name: rohit maheshwari
Pnr: zc97m
Mumbai hong kong: august 9, 2019 - ai 314
Hong kong mumbai: august 18, 2019 - ai 317

It was one of the most horrible travel experience i had faced till date. Following problems was faced by me:

1. The flight from mumbai to hong kong was delayed by more than 6 hours and there was no communication in the form of sms/ calls/ email from the airlines about the delay. When i reached airport at 6.15 pm i. E. 1.5 hours before flight departure, i was informed at the counter that the flight is delayed by 5 hours. Why i asked the ticket counter executive, he informed that the information was received an hour ago and the customer care is responsible for sharing the information. Just to highlight, i received a communication for delay from airline around 7.10 pm.

2. I had an important business meeting next day at 10.00 am hong kong time and i requested them for a earlier flight. After hours of argument and waiting at the ticket counter, they told me that they can try board me on the cathay pacific flight which was a direct flight at 1.10 am and would reach near my meeting time. But that offer came with a condition that i need to wait till 10.15 pm and post that only they can confirm. I was waiting till 10.15 pm and when i reached out to the ticket counter, they asked me to wait for some more time. Around 11.30 pm they informed me that they can transfer me to cathay pacific (Their ticket window was about to close at 12 mid night). We rushed for the ticket issuance, etc. But after 10 mins they informed me that i cant travel cathay pacific so i need to travel air india. I had no other option but to say yes to them. Anyhow, i rushed to the gate as it was only 45 minutes for flight departure and i need to go through immigration, security, etc.

3. When i reached boarding gate, they informed that flight is further delayed and they did not display the departure time also. Finally the flight departed around 2.00 am and thanks to air india i reached around 1.30 p hong kong time and i missed my important business meeting and my entire schedule was disturbed.

4. To my surprise when i saw the flight actual departure for last couple of days, i noticed that flight was always late by 5-6 hours. If the flight is always delayed, why does not the airline change the flight timing only. Would like to highlight one more thing here that i got 3 different reason for flight delay a) bad weather at delhi airport; b) bad weather at mumbai airport and c) incoming flight was late.

5. The horrible experience did not end here. The return flight was also delayed by more than 3 hours and this time also there was no communication from airline either in the form of sms/ calls/ email. This time also the reason given to me was that they came to know an hour ago about the flight delay and hence did not update the passengers.

6. Would like to highlight few things in the airlines also. Both time the in-house entertainment system was not working. Either the volume was not there/ the wired device was not working. There was no amenity kit for the hong kong mumbai sector flight.

I would like to know is this expected from the national carrier. A business class passenger pays 3-4 times the economy class fare and face this type of problems. This i really pathetic. I would never travel with the air india in future and would ask others also not to travel with air india after this horrifying experience.

I would like to have a monetary compensation for all this problem. I like to make a claim of 25% of the ticket amount (Ticket cost was rs. 91, 335).