Air India — mismanagement

Address:

india, Mumbai City, Maharashtra

Air india

No of passengers: 5

Flight number: ai985

Date:15/4/2019

Depart time: 22:00

From: bom - chhatrapati shivaji, terminal 2

Sir/madam,

My name is syed ajaz ahmed holding indian passport number residing in oman with my family, in muscat oman. As i write this to you, i am doing so with a considerable level of fury and disappointment at your organization.

This is regarding flight number ai985 dated 15th april 2019 scheduled to fly from mumbai international airport to muscat international airport.

We bought 5 tickets to travel back to muscat.

Despite us reaching the check in counter on time and being issued a boarding pass as well still we were not allowed to fly back to muscat.

We were in total 5 family members travelling with 2 small children with special needs. We travel to mumbai for the treatment of our physically ill child.

We travelled from jaipur to mumbai by train to catch the flight. Do you realize the fatigue we would be in?

I along with my 5 family members including my sick son had received boarding pass on time in mumbai international airport. We proceeded with the security and immigration and reached the gate as soon as possible.

The air india staff denied our boarding. After immigration zero assistance was provided at the gates with only comments from your “lethargic and not so helpful staff” that we couldn’t go any further.

It is surprising not one member from your team tried to reach us neither at the airport to trace us.

I asked the staff what is my fault? Why should i go back?

Why was my ticket not rescheduled? Instead i was asked to take my luggage back.

I asked for a solution and all they said is that is that you have to go back once the luggage comes back.

There was no announcement and no one even came looking for us. Is this our fault?

I and my family with my two special needs children were standing outside air india office at the airport and requesting for rescheduling of the ticket. The present staff were saying after two hours we will see.in the meantime they have taken my boarding pass and never returned it back. Kindly check in my passport the immigration seal has also been done.

Things did not end there!!! We had to wait for our luggage and then too only to get insulted by your staff that if we did not leave from there, they would inform security and have us thrown out! Our ill child was sleeping on the airport floor because he needed medicines and was tired of waiting.

At 3am in the morning we were sent out of the airport to hunt for hotels in an alien town since we hail from jaipur. Isn’t it airlines responsibility to take care of the situation and help the passengers? There was no help to book us on a next flight or what we should do further. All they said is that we need to get out of the airport fast.

We weren’t carrying extra money as we did not need indian rupees in muscat. After we were out of airport we had to look for taxi and then hotel to stay in. How should we move around with a sick child looking for hotel to stay back in?

As we had no money, i have borrowed from my friend to help for the hotel expense.

This is a big shock for me. First time in my life i have seen such a rude behavior of your staff. I have been travelling from past 35 years and most of my flights are from air india only. Never have i seen anyone so irresponsible and rude in behavior in air india. Not being the first time i do business with you, i am surprised of the terrible way of treating a "valued" returning customer.

Why was i not given another flight back to muscat?

We took loan from our relatives and paid for the taxi and hotel stay.

We booked new flight again at much higher value after three days for all the 5 members of the family to return back to muscat. I had no money and i had to borrow from my relatives.

My previous experience through your air line has been horrible and most inconvenient. This is a very unprofessional behavior from the air india airlines.

I hope that air india being a national flight of india will specifically deal with customers who have had poor experiences on the airline.

As a result of this inadequate service and no proper management of the air lines staff, the resulting inconvenience is intolerable especially with two special needs child of which one of them was physically ill.

Moreover the rude and abrasive air india staff tortured and harassed us and the manner in which our boarding passes were snatched is highly unacceptable. This is not the kind of behavior we would expect from the national air lines of india.

As i have suffered a lot and according to the above mentioned i have all the right to claim for the new tickets we paid for along with the 3 day stay at the hotel and conveyance charges.

Because i bought new tickets, i have requested for the compensation.

I also further claim for my other expenses.

I am requesting for the compensation for which the airlines is responsible.

The refund requested by me is reasonable compared to the offense i have suffered due to your airlines unprofessional way of leaving the traveller stranded with no option other than buying an expensive ticket at the last moment.

We hope that you plan to take necessary precautions to prevent such incidents in the future and give me compensation for which im eligible.

Sincerely,

Ajaz ahmed