[Resolved]  Jet Airways — Manhandling of fragile luggage and rude ground staff

Address:

Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

I had a horrible experience in my recent travel from Paris to Hyderabad. (Details: 10-Aug Paris to Mumbai, PNR: RSBODM, 11-Aug, Mumbai to Hyderabad, PNR: JAKMVJ) I was flying business class throughout and had a change in Mumbai. I had checked-in one of my bags as fragile from Paris (also got another fragile tag fixed in Mumbai when I changed to domestic flight). However, when I received my bag, its lock was damaged (photo attached). It took me and the Jet Airways Hyderabad airport manager over 10 mins to open the bag. Post which we saw that the bottles bought from duty free were also damaged and had leaked in the bag. The bag had multiple fragile tags while checking in but when I received it, the condition of the tags and the bag was bad (photo attached). Despite, this not only was the ground staff rude but grossly incompetent. Miss Sangeetha B, a ground staff in Hyderabad, treated me rudely and gave illogical arguments. The explanation given by her : "Sir, at times during luggage handling the fragile tags do come off and then we treat the bags non-fragile. It's not our fault that your bag got damaged." This implies that it's the passenger's duty to make sure bag tags stay on the bag till the end of the journey. If that was not enough, the airport manager in Hyderabad, Mr Abhijit Angolkar, proved that rationality has no place in Jet Airways. Due to the damage on the bag, the champagne bottles sealed in the duty free bag got damaged and had leaked within the bag. I have attached picture of what happened to the bill inside the bag. But in Mr Abhijit's words "Sir it must be a manufacturing defect in the champagne bottle that it leaked, as I don't see a big crack. Hence its not our fault that you lost your bottles". The airport manager blamed the construction of champagne bottle, rather than owning up the damage done by their luggage handling team. I reached out to Jet Airways directly (compliant number: BOM/CCI/AD/180814/4655074) handled by Mr Anil D'Souza, who again instead of owning up the mistake, gave me a disclaimer that they are not responsible for any damages to the fragile bags. I am not looking for any financial redressal but I want to make sure that such incompetent airlines (and their rude incompetent staff) don't get an opportunity to get away with this.