[Resolved]  Indigo Airlines — Rude Ground Force staff at Goa and Delhi - Trying to charge extra baggage fee though baggage within limits

Address:

North Goa, Goa

Hello

I would like to bring to your notice a very distasteful experience my family and I had to undergo at Goa airport (GOI) on 15th September 2013. We were traveling from Goa to Kolkata via Bangalore on 6E 343 on 15/09/2013. We had all our checked in luggage and carry on luggages weighed and cleared at the check in counter.

We waited at the boarding gate for almost 45 mins and then when we were about to board the bus, one of your CSR (Assistant Manager) - Justin Gowe (0895) stopped my wife and I from boarding the bus citing our carry on luggage was overweight while it was not. My 3 year old daughter and my parents had already boarded the bus and in spite of requesting him to let us also board, he did not listen and physically pulled us out of the queue causing great embarrassment to both o[censored]s. I had the boarding passes for all 5 o[censored]s with me. One of Mr. Justin's associates, not sure what he was trying to do, weighed 2 carry on luggages together and it came out as 13 kgs (which is ok per your carry on baggage allowance of 7 kg each for 2 luggages). We had a total of 5 carry on luggages (including 2 laptop bag packs) and the combined weight of all 5 of them was well within 35 kg allowance. Mr. Justin tried to intimidate us saying we cannot board the flight unless one of the baggages was checked in for a fee that he was very intent on getting from us. He was being rude as he pulled us out back from where the bus boarding starts and was trying to impose all his sales tactics to extract money out of our pockets (for which I am sure he gets some good commission for any excess baggage fees he gets for your airlines). We pleaded that the weight of the 2 bags combined is less than 14 kg, though one of the bags was around 9 kg and the other was around 4 kg. He tried his best to get the 9 kg bag be checked in for a fee. We had to finally move some stuff from the 9kg bag to the 4 kg bag and then only he got satisfied when he could not do anything else to get money out of our pockets. We then had to get on another bus and by the time we reached the plane staircase, it was already 15-20 mins.

Since my 3 year old kid and my senior citizen parents had already been on the bus which left earlier, they were stopped at the plane boarding staircase in the scorching hot sun go Goa at around 2:00 pm for all those 15-20 mins. My daughter was profusely crying for all that time until we arrived thinking we were not coming with her. This was an utterly shocking incident that we won't forget easily. Your CSRs seem to target people traveling with family as they think they are soft targets to get the money since families would not resist their intimidation tactics and pay them the excess baggage fees without much ado.
If he was really concerned about the wight of the bags and safety of the passengers, he should have come up with his weighing scale when were sitting and relaxing at the seats next to the gate 1C. I have seen so many times, various international airlines do that check if their aircrafts cannot accommodate a piece of carry on luggage (when traveling thru Paris, Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam etc.) and they do a valet check in for free. Your CSRs wait till the last moment when the passenger is about to board the bus as they know that due to the time crunch, they will have a greater chance of extracting the extra money from the passengers with their intimidation tactics.

I also had a similar bad experience on 31/08/2013 at the Delhi airport - Terminal 1D when flying from Delhi to Mumbai. This CSR at the Delhi airport (forgetting his name) does not even know the rules of carry on allowance which clearly states that an additional laptop (without a bag) is allowed additionally on top of the 7 kg carry-on limit per passenger. He arrogantly was asking us to pay for the extra weight of the laptop though I was not required to as he did not know the rules. I had to use my smartphone to open up the carry on baggage allowance policy as specified on your website and then only did he let us go.

I would earnestly request you to have more customer friendly people who are knowledgeable about the rules for the company they work for because these type of people create a bad name for your airline. This was a very bitter experience for me on my trip to India from the US which I make very frequently. I have never faced anything of this sort in the US or on any other airline in India in my past 10 years of flying for personal/business commitments.

Such experiences will only get people to stay away from Indigo for any future travel plans. It definitely has dented my confidence by having 2 instances in within a couple of weeks. I would really like to get an apology / action on such CSRs, else I won't be flying on Indigo again in the future.

Thanks
Vishal