| Address: Mumbai City, Maharashtra |
| Website: www.jetairways.com |
I wish to bring to your notice the terrible experience with the jet airways with respect to my recent transaction and below is the sequence of events:
17th june - i called up the jet privilege contact center mumbai number in the evening to make changes to my original booking vide the pnr zaoqrl for two passengers for kol-del sector for 18th june. This was a miles redemption booking for my jp account. An executive named obed assisted me in making the sector change from kolkata delhi to delhi-kol flight change and new booking was confirmed on flight number 9w7142 departing delhi at 20.35 and arriving in kolkata at 22.45 for monday 19th june. I had an emergency at home in kolkata and i needed to be there on 18th itself. However due to overloading in the flights my bookings are confirmed by obed for monday 19th june 8.35 pm flight. I was informed that my booking is confirmed and i was able to take a snapshot of the same from the website. Also i was informed that because of the sector change, there was a tax refund of rs 430 per passenger which i need to collect from the jet airways counter at the airport. When i asked him if i could collect the same on the day of my flight when i go to the airport to catch the flight, obed answered in affirmative saying that i would be able to show the snapshot taken on my mobile to the cisf personnel at the gate and go inside the airport, collect my tax refund and a fresh ticket would be issued to me then and there. When i asked the web checkin on the same call with obed, he said that i wont be able to web checkin since i need to collect the tax refund from the counter and then they will do the counter checkin for me at the same time...
Since i had to fly urgently to kolkata, i requested for an earlier flight i. E the one departing either at 7.30 am or 10.50 am on 19th june and obed informed me that he can put me on a waitlist for these two flights and in case there is availability in either if the flights, i will have an option to either change my flight bookings to the desired or continue on the 8.35 pm flight.
He did not mention any timeline within which i need to collect my tax refund from the counter (After my booking is confirmed) or else my booking would get cancelled. Also he did not inform me of the option of waiving off the tax refund through the contact center in which case my ticket would be issued. All that he said was that it has to be collected from the counter only and only a couner checkin is possible and tax refund in the same account would not be possible. He also mentioned that the refund would be made in cash.
Nor did he mention that in case my desired waitlisted flights get confirmed, my confirmed booking would get cancelled without my consent. He just told me that i need to keep calling the contact centre and checking the status of the waitlisted flights. However my booking on the 8.35 flight in any case stands confirmed.
Also, that in case a desired flight would get confirmed, jet airways would cancel my original booking without informing me or taking my consent.
18th june - i again called up on 18th june evening to check the status of the waitlisted flight and spoke to an executive named kundan this time. First he told me that my request for waitlist has got cancelled because of time issue. He again put me on a waitlist for the 7.30 and 10.50 am flight. On asking by when this might get confirmed, he informed me that if i call up after 9pm on sun 18th june, i would get to know the status. When i asked him that in case i dont call up, my original booking for the 8.35 flight would stand confirmed as it is, he answered in the affirmative and in fact also told me that i can do the web checkin. This was again contradictory to what obed had told me
19th june - when i tried doing my web checkin for my flight 9w7142 on 19th june morning, i was not able to do so. Then i called up the contact center at around 10-15 to do the tele checkin and in that call, the executive sonali informed me that i had a confirmed booking for the 7.30 am flight and then there was a waitlist for the 10.50 am flight. And that i was marked a no show against the 7.30 am flight and that there was no booking for the 8.35 pm flight. When i told her that i have the snapshot, she rechecked that the 8.35 had got cancelled and the 7.30 had got confirmed. She had no answer when i told her how could jet airways do this without informing me for the changes and taking the consent when the previous two executives obed and kundan had told me so. First she was surprised that this has happened without me being informed. After a minutes hold, she changed her stance and said that jet airways doesn’t inform about confirmations on the desired waitlisted flights.
There was so much of discrepancy in my conversation with her. When my ticket could not have been issued (Without me either collecting the tax refund from the airport or waiving it off as informed by obed on 17th), how could have i been marked as no show.
Then i was put to another executive nitin who again had no answer on how could this be done without i being informed and why there is so much of discrepancy in what the different executives has been saying for the last 2 days. When i insisted that i had to reach my destination on 19th only since there was an emergency and for no fault of mine why should i suffer, i demanded to be accommodated in any flight on that date whether economy or business, he promised to call me back at 12.30 pm to confirm the status. This whole episode lasted for close to 45 mins.
When i didn’t hear from him till 12.45 pm again called up the contact center and i had to again waste my time speaking to the 4th executive this time told me that they cant give me a confirmed booking for 19th june. I demanded that nitin come on the line and speak to me since he promised to get back to me with the response.. Nitin then aplogised and admitted that although this was not my fault, there is nothing that he can do for19th itself. When i demanded that because of family emergency i had to reach my destination anyhow and if jet airways wishes to help a passenger they can accommodate even in business class if there is a dire emergency, he said i need to redeem my miles for business class or else it cant be done he told me repeatedly that the best option for me was either to use my miles to upgrade to business class for which there was availability or else he could try putting me on the next day’s flight. I fail to understand where was this an option. I was being forced to do so.
When i demanded that i wish to speak someone senior, his manager sandeep singh came on the line. And i was surprised that he had no cue on what was my original booking he told me that my original booking was for the morning 7.30 flight (Desire waitlisted) it is strange i had to infact explain the sequence of events to him. He flatly refused to be of any help. Infact he kept defending the lapses of the executive. He tried to pass on the responsibility of the entire goo[censored]p on me saying that “ infact if my tickets had been issued for 7.30 flight by the backend team, i would have been marked as a no show”. Again this was contradictory to what obed told me and even more with sonali who mentioned that was marked a no show for that flight. All the executives had been saying very different things. It seemed to me that jet airways was making a fool of me and just trying to pass on the buck on me.
Sandeep told me very curtly that business class would not be possible and he could only try to accommodate me on the next day’s flight but no commitment is possible and that the only thing that he can do is assign my pnr to a senior executive who would keep a track of my pnr and call me in case any seats are available till 9 pm. On asking for contact numbers of head of customer service or the appellate authority to escalate this issue he could only provide me with your email id.
This entire episode lasted fir more than 1.45 hours
He then called back about 45 mins later to inform me that he had spoken to the analytics team and they have agreed to confirm me on the 8.35 pm flight for 20th june on the same call subject to my approval. He then went on to explain and defend how the server automatically cancels duplicate booking etc. He informed me that there were timelines for either taking back refund from the counter or give a go ahead for waiving off the same (In which case a remark would be put against the pnr and the backend team would issue the ticket) only after which my ticket would be issued or else it would again get cancelled. When i requested if he could put a remark that my tax could be refunded in the same account whenever possible or i could collect the same at the time of checkin, he told me that jet airways follows certain processes. This kind of double standards by jet airways is not acceptable. On one hand your executives talk of processes and on the other hand no one is clear of the processes and no one wishes to inform the same to the customer because of which only the customer suffers. This is terrible on the part of the airlines. On being asked that had obed informed me of the entire process in the first place, things would not have got so messed up, he said for that he needs to check the call recordings and then only can comment. Please not that i have asked him to go through all the call recordings and get back to me.
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Such a pathetic experience of this whole episode is a serious service lapse by jet airways. From cancelling the confirmed bookings without passenger consent, ill-informed executives who give misleading information this is not acceptable to me at all. I demand an explanation and the commensurate compensation for this
Jet Airways customer support has been notified about the posted complaint.
Better you may go to consumer court to get proper result against your issue.
Anguraj
Thanks
Kumar