Airports Authority of India — Customer Service at Bangalore airport

Address:

Bengaluru

My wife was travelling on Oman Air flight with 2 children aged 2 and 6.
She had checked in luggage within the parameters allowed (90kg)
And she was carrying 1 x trolley bag weight 10kg
1 x baby pram (cabin storage size)
1 x baby bag with baby's essentials.

The check in staff at Bangalore International airport forced her to reduce the trolley from 10kg to 7kg OR carry another trolley thereby making 2 bags of 5 kg each. Their reasoning, the flight is full and they cannot take the 10kg bag and it has to be 7kg or lower. This is absolutely stupid because 1 x 10kg bag takes lesser space than 2 x 5kg bags. And it is not even an issue for weight because she's allowed a total of 21kg of carry on luggage (of which she was barely using 15-16kg)

They harassed her until she reduced the weight of the trolley bag to 7kg

Then, while she stood first in the boarding queue with the kids, one of the executives forced her to be taken aside and had the passports checked once again. WHY? She was travelling with kids and all comfort should be afforded to women travelling with kids but this person went out of his way to make it miserable for her. She wanted to board first so that she can put the pram in and not create problem for herself or others but this person made sure that she boarded late.

Also, what is the point of doing a full thorough check of the passports at the boarding gate when it has already been screened at the check in counter and also at the immigration counters? Just a visual check of the passport matching the passenger takes a few seconds but this man made it a problem for her.

Then the ground staff forced her to leave her pram for check in. This is a cabin sized pram the the person again cited flight being full. My wife offered the trolley but they wanted the pram. It makes Zero sense. She is allowed to store 3 pieces of luggage. and she was well within her rights to keep all three. If the airline wanted to reduce the load they should take the trolley which is not as important while travelling with a baby as the pram is.

Eventually when the staff saw that my wife was right in claiming it was a cabin pram, they apologized and deboarded.

Bangalore airport was once of the best Airports in India. The efficiency and speed with which everything was done, affording high levels of comfort and ease to the travellers was something I have personally boasted about. But in the past year or so, it has gone down the drain.

The staff is rude, uncouth and has no regard for customer satisfaction. I know this will probably fall on deaf years and no major action will be taken. But I am doing my duty to inform that if a woman is travelling through BIAL with kids, then she must be ready for a tough ride.