By Adv. Jatin Ramaiya
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Margao, reprimanded Air India for the deficient service provided to Dr Sanjay Sukthankar and Dr Anjali S Sukthankar, Ponda. The couple alleged deficiency in service by Air India.
They said that they were to travel from Shillong to Hyderabad on June 7 2019, via Hyderabad and were to travel back to Goa and reach Goa on June 8 2019. However, in the early hours of the date of travel they were informed that their flight was delayed and thereafter cancelled. It was alleged that the airline neither provided any alternate arrangement nor any meaningful assistance and consequently they were left helpless at Shillong.
The doctors claimed they were forced to hire a taxi from Shillong to the nearest airport Guwahati to catch a flight from there. Enroute to Guwahati, they visited the office of AI and the office confirmed the cancellation and endorsed the same on the reservation slip and that the petitioners are liable to get full refund.
Despite having a confirmed booking, they were compelled to book only other available flight from Guwahati to Goa via Mumbai and further incur the expense of Rs 50,402 and forgo the amounts paid by them for the earlier flight booked by them from Hyderabad to Goa.
In the process both of them had spend the night at the Mumbai airport as there was no immediate connecting flight from Mumbai to Goa. All these caused immense mental agony to them and therefore, complaint was filed to seek redressal and compensation for loss.
Upon admission of the complaint AI represented by their advocate opposed grant of relief to the couple. The airline in its defence pleaded that the flight was cancelled due to technical fault. They said that, passengers were expected to contact Air India Shillong Airport for alternate arrangements however instead of reporting at Shillong Airport the complainants contacted their agent for alternate arrangements from Guwahati Airport and travelled by road to Guwahati at their own cost.
The airline further said that they were not informed about the travel planned by the complainants from Hyderabad to Goa. They contended that the complainants would only be entitled to Rs 7,500 per person as compensation and would not be entitled to any other amounts as per DGCA CAR guideline’s Section3 Series M, Part IV, effective from August 1 2016.
The bench comprising Pradip Sawaikar, president and Cynthia Colaco and Nelly Pereira e D’ Silva, members, ordered AI to compensate the complainants and held that the airline was liable for deficiency in service. The bench observed that “The service providers have to remain conscious of the fact that the customers pay huge sums for booking their tickets and they do so in order to facilitate their journeys on the given date and time. The non fulfillment of the commitment made to customers cannot be taken lightly by the service providers.”
The commission held that AI with several years of experience behind it, ought to have provided all assistance to the passengers and for such purpose it ought to have intimated to the passengers about the existence of another flight from Guwahati to Kolkata on June 7 2019, which would have assisted the medical professionals to reach their destination. Finding that the airline was deficient in providing service The Commission directed the airline to pay Rs 22,710 being the sums spent by them towards their travel ticket and taxi fare and further to pay compensation of Rs one lakh amongst other reliefs.