Oman Air — tickets cancelled by airline without informing me

Address:	Centre 1, World Trade Centre, Floor no. 19, Unit no 4, Cuffe Parade, Colaba, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400005, Mumbai City, Maharashtra, 400005
Website:	www.omanair.com

Hello,

I booked tickets for me, my wife and 2 children from mumbai to london and paris to mumbai on sept 2, for flights on oct 20 and nov 1. I booked the tickets online vide reservation code wcpdku. The payment was made through my hdfc bank credit card. The bank called me to check the authenticity of the payment and i confirmed. Soon after i received an email from airline giving my reservation details and a message from the bank confirming the payment.

Based on the above, i applied for a uk visa and a schengen visa, submitting the airline reservations and other details and i got the visas processed. I also booked hotels and other modes of transport in europe.

Yesterday i tried to select my seats on the flights through the oman air website, their their manage booking link. The system could not find my booking. So i called them, and i was shocked to hear that my reservation is not confirmed, despite the airline receiving the money. They did not have any clue why this was happening and asked me to send an email to [protected]@omanair.com i wrote to them yesterday and i heard from them today. What they say is very shocking. It is causing huge mental trauma, loss of face and possible loss of business. I am reproducing my email exchange below. Please help:

My first email to them:
From: parthajeet sarma [mailto:[protected]@gmail.com]
Sent: thursday, october 10, 2019 4:57 am
To: shashi puthran ; webbooking ; customer relation
Subject: booking not confirmed : urgent urgent urgent

Ladies and gentlemen at oman air,

I am shocked!!! What is going on???

On sept 12, 2019, i booked tickets for myself and my family (Wife and two children) for a trip to london, brussels and paris starting oct 20. The reservation code is wcpdku. I have attached the booking details as well. Based on this, i have booked hotels and even secured visas. Today i tried to select seats from ‘manage booking’ on you website. I could not get the details. So i called your phone numbers in india. The call centre agent told me that this is not yet confirmed, but they can see that the payment is made successfully. They seemed to have no idea why this was happening. I am also attaching payment confirmation at my end. They asked me to write to you.

• how can those handing your call centre say they have no idea?
• why have you not bothered to reach out to me over phone or email if the reservation is not confirmed, but you have taken the money? Is this not tantamount to cheating?

Kindly do what is necessary to be done so that the reservation is confirmed immediately. This is causing a lot of mental agony at our end. Kindly confirm once done.

With warm regards,

Parthajeet sarma

Their response:
Dear mr sarma,

Reference to your below email, the tickets are not issued the system, and as per below email received from our finance ho payment authorization was cancelled at the same time when you have requested for the tickets and ticket numbers was not generated as you can see in the attached pnrs snapshot, no were is showing ticket numbers.

In view of the above system has generated the time limit 12 september 2019, to issue the tickets, and ticket was not issued as per the time limit given to you by the system and therefore booking got cancelled due to tl expiry. (Auto cancellation)

Please check with you bank accordingly, and do the booking again on the same itinerary if you wish to travel.

Above for your kind information.

Kind regards

Shashi puthran
Reservations officer - india
Centre 1, world trade centre, 19th floor
Cuffe parade, colaba, mumbai 400 005
Tel: +[protected]

My response again to shashi's email:

Dear shashi,

Thank you for your response. However, what you are saying has created a huge problem for me and my family; possibly one of the biggest disasters in my professional career. I request that you kindly resolve this within 24 hours of this email; the minimum resolution that i will accept is that you issue me the tickets at the price that i swiped my credit card for. Failing this will force me to approach a consumer court and claim for the following:
Mental trauma
Cost of alternative flights (On any class we book)
Cost of hotels and other modes of travel within europe (If they are non-refundable) in case i cannot travel on the booked dates
Incidentals like insurance, etc
Business loss
Legal expenses
Man-hour cost (Me and my wife)
The approximate claim is likely to run upto in the range of rs. 2 crore-3 crore indian rupees.

I understand our rights; we taken legal advice and i am marking this email to our advocate ms. Smritishree chakravarty as well as to a consumer forum (Not yet filed). I humbly request that you resolve this within 24 hours once again, as we do not wish to waste my time or your time and fight over a system glitch. Let us be human and try and understand each other as humans (And not rely on ’systems’). Let me explain why i am saying the above; kindly read carefully and make an attempt to understand it from my perspective (Not your perspective).
Firstly, you are talking some language that i do not understand; like tickets not issued by the system, within given time, etc. What is all this? I am not a travel agent. I am 47 years old and i have been flying domestic and international for several decades. Like in all other transactions, i selected the flights and paid for them. I selected the emi option on the hdfc bank card that you offered. Instantly, i got a call from the bank, to verify if i used my card. I said yes, and they okayed the payment. I get an email from you with the reservation details and under each flight i see the words ‘confirmed’ and i assume (From decades of familiarity with a system of booking airline tickets), all is done. Are you expecting your customers to understand ‘how oman air’s system works’ and is different from other airlines? Or to read the fine print? That’s a big ask shashi.
You may even think that i am a stupid and dumb customer who does not understand oman air systems. Maybe your intelligence levels are of the level of a higher being. Here is my profile www.parthajeet.com and maybe i happened to study in oxford out of sheer luck.
I and my wife have very very important meetings lined up in london, oxford and in paris; under no circumstances can i afford to miss these. Missing them would mean huge business losses.
We have booked hotels and other modes of transport (Non refundable); and i am attaching some of these.
We applied for uk and schengen visa for the 4 o[censored]s, and submitted your reservation details. Both the uk and french embassy accepted these as confirmation and have issued us visas. Maybe these embassies are also not of your level of intelligence that they could not spot an invalid reservation.
I would certainly like to write to the 2 embassies and alert them of this huge security threat that oman air can create for their countries: imagine people taking advantage of your system driven ticketing where they can make reservations (That they do not have to pay for) and secure a visa and then misuse it.
Why would a person like me make all arrangements and line up meetings if i had no intent of traveling?
Like other airlines, do you not have a customer centric approach? Do you not need to understand what is happening at the customer end? What is the possible interpretation of your ‘system’ in their minds? If you did, you would have called me to let me know that i have to take some action for the tickets to be issued. I still do not understand what i was supposed to do.
A travel agent may be aware of such rules that you may have, but a customer is unlikely to understand or be aware. If you do no support the customer by a second level of intervention by way of a phone call or otherwise; about a time limit, etc…. It only goes to show that you do not understand customer behavior or you do not care, or both of these.
You may also listen to the recording of the call i had with your agent yesterday (Oct 9), gaurav; when he confirmed that oman air has received the payment. So something is fishy here. Under the rti act, i can demand for this recording, if necessary.
You (Or your system as you say) returned the money to the bank; did i ask you to? Did i ask you to cancel my reservation? Do you not have to seek my permission before canceling a contract? You think a ‘fine print’ is good enough; sorry it is not, if it does not make any sense.
I received an intimation that i have been charged (Rs. 156047) for the tickets; i have not received any initimation from you or from the bank indicating that the amount has been returned. Now try and understand what makes me feel (Think from my perspective)…. A normal human being would be under the impression that everything is fine with the reservation. If you depend on machines to do your job, they need to communicate in a way that humans can decipher. If you want humans to decipher, you need to speak a language that humans can understand.
I understand our rights. You must understand this. We will go to any extent to protect our rights as customers. One the main points here is that i did everything necessary (From my perspective, which has evolved over making 100s of airline bookings over decades) to ensure that i get myself on an oman air flight on oct 20 and the payment was made for.
There are many other points that we are developing, in case we have to go to court for this. However i hope we do not have to; and you will resolve this immediately. I look forward to your support. We have about a week left for the travel date; so kindly refrain from too much email ping pong. If you need to speak, please feel free to call me on[protected] or my wife (Sibani sarma) on[protected].

With warm regards,

Parthajeet
_
Parthajeet sarma (B. Arch, mba, chevening scholar)
www.Parthajeet.com
M:+[protected]