Akasa Air — Staff misbehaviour, misinformation and extortion

Dear All,

This is regarding the booking for PNR Y7VPYZ. The flight was scheduled to take off at 6:55am on 6th May 2023. We had cleared our check in as well as security and were in the lounge at Bangalore airport. We were supposed to board by 6:30am and got multiple calls from the staff. At 6:31am, we called back and mentioned we were on our way to the gate. We reached the gate at 6:35am but were not allowed to board. (Mr. Gopikrishnan - Duty Manager)

We went to the kiosk to reschedule where we were told we need to pay INR 2000 extra person. And that there was a Central Government rule which doesn't allow passengers to board after the 25min cutoff. We paid and took tickets for the next flight scheduled at 10:20am.

While waiting at the airport, we saw multiple airlines accepting passengers after the 25min deadline. Thus, we starting looking for the DCGA rule which we could not find. In fact, in the next flight we boarded, the last passenger entered at 10:03am when the gate shuts at 9:55am as per the rule.

We have two issues:
1. The duty manager was extremely inconsiderate, rude and unwilling to help.
2. The kiosk attendant lied to us about the Central Government rule and 25min cutoff.

This holistically feels like a way of arm twisting the customer to pay more. In general, the behaviour was callous, unhelpful and making us feel like criminal for being 3-4mins late when flights are so often late by 2-3hrs. 3-4mins of courtesy can be shown to a customer who has already checked in and crossed security. Post research, we found that the airline is also responsible to get the passenger inboard, once they have cleared security on time.

The new boarding pass for the 10:20am flight mentions boarding should begin at 9:20am sharp. However, the boarding started at 9:25am. However, this time we were expected to 'understand'.

After 2 weeks of complaining and following up, the airline has come back and said it was a 'base flight'and thus could not be delayed. However, we were at the gate at 6:35am, 20mins before take off. There was no way the flight could have been delayed because o[censored]s. It was just a matter of extending basic courtsey. Instead we were treated badly, spoken to rudely, given false information regarding DGCA rules, extorted for money and the airline refused to even acknowledge their mistake. It is my sincere request that the airline realises this and does not take consumers for granted. We deserve to be adequately compensated for this ordeal and request your support in ensuring that companies do not fool and extort consumers as they please.

Thanks

Best Regards,
Saloni