NEW DELHI: Your frequent bad experiences while flying — rude staffers, rip-off cancellation charges, missing flights after slow check-in and then being forced to cough up huge sums to be on next flights, and cooked-up flying times to dress up punctuality records — have now been confirmed by a group of MPs.
A Parliamentary panel has indicted domestic carriers in general and market leader IndiGo (which has an almost 40% domestic market share) in particular for these ills and slammed the aviation ministry for not doing enough to rescue flyers from the
airlines' malpractices. "A boom in flying has led to a surge in consumer complaints... unprofessional behaviour at all levels of customer interaction... (this) is enhanced by lack of (aviation) ministry mandated guidelines (for) customer protection,"
Rajya Sabha's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture says in a report titled "issues related to improving consumers' satisfaction of airlines".
Led by TMC's Derek O' Brien, the panel identified the commonest bugbears of flyers like high airfares, staff behavior, problems at checkin counters, quality of food served, cancellation charges, non-uniform block time and the terrible shortage of airport infrastructure. The MPs red-flagged "exorbitant airfares" when travel peaks due to reasons like festival and holiday seasons and natural disasters.
"Even after a 50% reduction of the jet fuel prices, airlines have not passed on the benefit to consumers... The ministry of civil aviation, though aware of the rampant exploitation, is not showing any proactive role in regulating the airfares. (The ministry must) consider fixing an upper limit of the air tickets for every sector," it said.
"The attitude of airline staff is as if they are on some high ground and passengers are uneducated who do not know anything, who have not flown before... their attitude is rude," it says about staff behaviour, while emphasising the need for proper training of airline staff. Airlines have been accused of intentionally slowing down check-in to force those who miss flights to buy next available one to their destination at the highest last minute fares. The panel lambasted airlines for their very high cancellation charges.
"There is no uniformity or minimum standards to impose charges for rescheduling, cancellation and no-show. Attractive offers by private airlines veil the fact that passengers are charged the entire ticket amount if they want to cancel the tickets. Airlines must be restricted to charging not more than 50% of the base fare as cancellation charges," it says.
It concludes that "consumers are at the receiving end and at the mercy of the private airlines for any kind of services... Government should wake up from its slumber and perform their duties to save airline passengers from the vices and to make the air travel an enjoyable experience for them."
Shakti Lumba, former VP of
Air India and IndiGo, however, said there was a "great disconnect" between the panel's views and the reality, given the inability of infrastructure to keep pace with the growth.
"The demand is for low fares.... At the same time there is a scarcity of employable and skilled manpower. Charges/Taxes are increasing. The view that all check in staff and cabin attendants are rude is a limited view and not widely held.... Just like aviation safety get enhanced after rectifying procedures and rules from lessons learnt from incidents/accidents so will customer service standards,"
Lumba said.
"The committee appears to be desiring the full services provided 'Indian Airlines' of bygone years at rock bottom fares with no desire to rectifying the underlining lack of urgency for the government to keep up with the growth," he added. The panel lambasts the government for not ensuring airport infra growth at major cities grows with air traffic.
File photo
