Your letters and posts
AIR INDIA REPLIES: On perusing Ms Neha Mehta’s ticket it was noted that she was booked on flight AI 343 on October 3 with departure time 0005. However as the flight was delayed, we allowed her to travel one day later (without any charges) on October 4 in order to get her preplanned number of days in India. Normally there are charges for date change or no-show with all carriers. For international journeys, passengers are
required to be at the airport three hours prior to the departure of the flight. This information is available at
airindia.in. The detailed report from Mumbai Airport revealed that Ms Mehta reported at the counter just 10 minutes before the counter closure time, with 49kg of baggage. The baggage allowance indicated on her ticket was only 40kg. As Ms Mehta was nine kilograms overweight, she was asked to pay the excess baggage charges but she was not willing to do so. As it was close to flight departure time, the Counter Supervisor advised her to take a decision as to whether she was proceeding with the journey. Ms Mehta only decided at 2315 to proceed with her journey. Air India waived off 4kg and The Duty Manager only charged her for 5kg of excess baggage. Since she was accepted past the official counter closure timing of 2305, and the baggage was released after 2315, the probability of not loading her luggage onto the same flight was communicated to Ms Mehta. Mumbai airport is a very busy airport and
we are sure that Ms Mehta can and will appreciate that Duty Managers have various responsibilities and deadlines to shoulder due to multiple flight operations. Often, non-approbation of passenger requests is misconstrued as rude behaviour. As a seasoned traveller, Ms Mehta is surely aware that for any international flight, check-in starts three hours prior to departure of flight and not 10 minutes prior to the closure of the counter. Also, Ms Mehta needs to substantiate her claims that other passengers were allowed to carry extra baggage – for this we have written to her and apologised for any inconvenience. On her return journey, Ms Mehta had packed her baggage in DHL boxes. Our ground- handling agent in Singapore inadvertently mistook these carton boxes of DHL as cargo and carried them to the warehouse. Upon checking, it was revealed that the boxes had arrived on the same flight, but by mistake went to the cargo warehouse. The baggage was returned to Ms Mehta at her residence the
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next day by 5pm. We also post advice on our website to passengers, advising them not to carry valuables in checked baggage. With regards to the interim payment, we would like to clarify that what is indicated on the website are general guidelines mentioned for the entire network. The interim relief for Europe, USA, Middle East and Asia varies from country to country. As clarified via email to Ms Mehta by the lost and found manager at Singapore Airport Terminal Services the interim payment of S$75 (US$60)is normally disbursed at the station. However as a special case, we disbursed S$100 (US$80) to Ms Mehta. A copy of Ms Mehta’s customer journey
record clearly indicates that call centre agents attempted to inform her of the flight delay, but were unsuccessful as there was no response on her mobile. Ms Mehta was accepted for travel to Delhi the next day on her Singapore- Mumbai ticket at no additional cost in view that the she was going to miss her onward flight to New Delhi from Mumbai and she has to incur additional cost to purchase ticket on another airline. Air India also paid Ms Mehta S$27.80 (US$22) towards taxi costs for travelling from Singapore-Delhi the next day. In closing, we would also like to mention that Ms Mehta has, in her various email communication, made threats to Air India and demanded exorbitant compensation, despite the fact that we have gone out of the way to reduce inconvenience caused to her by the delay/disruption situation. We would like to add that flight punctuality is our priority. While we endeavour to have all flights depart on schedule, delays can occur for various reasons such as sudden technical faults, air traffic congestion or bad weather etc. As the safety of our passengers and crew is a key concern, we will not operate a flight until we are confident that the requisite pre-conditions have been satisfied.
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UPGRADE UPSET On my return from Doha to Kuala Lumpur with Qatar Airways in March, I received an operational upgrade from business to first class. However, what was a pleasant surprise was soon spoilt when I found the seat would not recline fully, and the lumbar support did not extend so kept digging into my legs unless the seat was kept upright. The first-class crew did all they could to fix the seat, without success. They provided additional pillows as padding, but these kept sliding off. The crew assured me they would
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015 17
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