Air India Complaints Continued... (Page 2)

On the morning of 6th January we were to depart at 0300hrs but when we arrived at the airport we were told by Air India that the flight had already gone and that they sent us a message informing us of this, but we did not receive any information via text or email that the flight time had changed, we were then informed to come back the next morning, once we got to the airport the next day we were then told that the flight was delayed due to the fog and would run the following day. Once we got the flight on the 7th January it was delayed for a further two hours, we finally arrived at London Heathrow on 7th January at 2230hrs. That's two days later. We weren't notified of anything. I need a letter from Air India to confirm the reason for delay for my insurance purposes. I have sent several messages with no reply. I will have no option other than involving my solicitors if I do not get a reply.

Recently after 15yrs I decided to travel with my family to India from ewr to bombay and I work for airline customer service agent I was travelling on Z fare the way I was treated at ewr and at ahemedabad was absoletly appaling the staff has no manners or respect and no guidance they just tell you stand aside and keep sending to different agents or officers finally to tell you flight is full and you did not make it while the reservation people at air India tells me me flight is wide open Is this the way You guys work or treat staff travelling on Z fares I can confirm there were plenty seats open as couple of my friends were on same flight I intended to go I did not make it both inbound and outbound....it was waste of time and money

Finally I did manage to go another airlines and was treated far better and as a agent we do not treat our non revs like you guys I was intersted to go on Air India because I am Indian and the flight was direct from ewr to ahmedabad it was saving me time and money but with this experience you have put me off and ashamed to be treated bad with your own people

My wife and myself are senior citizens. Both of us generally prefer to travel by Indian Airlines/Air India. Yesterday evening we were three passengers and took your flight 849 from Delhi to Pune. (my wife - one of the passengers), suffers from movement disorder as a result of which she is a wheel chair bound person. Till now we had experienced that the facilities available with you were much better than other airlines as a result of which your staff was better enabled to handle such passengers. While your staff at all points was cooperative the wheel chairs given to them both at Delhi and Pune air ports were not suitable.

At Delhi she had to be left to the mercy of the cabin crew to get to her seat, while at Pune the system of disembarking was somewhat dangerous - because the wheel chair which the attendant had brought was quite rickety and was swaying from side to side. It also had very miniature sized wheels - even negotiating small small pot holes was difficult. One could see the fear of falling on the face/ eyes of Mrs. Lall.
I am sorry to have to point this out to you, but this time the system of handling a wheel chair bound passenger was quite callous. I do hope you will take necessary action to ensure that the above is not repeated.

Air-India-Complaint-note-30-11-2011 Dear Sir, I travelled by Air India flight No. AI 849 from Delhi to Pune on November 30, 2011. I reported at Delhi air port at 15.30 hrs having boarding No. 106 and Etk No. 0983573609587C1. I had submitted my baggage having No. 0098366375 at Delhi air port. While depositing the baggage I had kept Rs. Around 3500/- in the same bag. My flight was reached at Pune around 17.50 hrs. and collection of baggage was started at 18.05 hrs. But my baggage came at last around 18.25 hrs.

Then I moved to my home around 19.00 hrs. I started to open my baggage, it was not opening properly, because of slight damage of chain. Finally I opened my baggage and I found that there was money at all. It was kept in side top shelf of baggage. I am sure that somebody has opened my baggage and taken out the money and relocked. It is difficult to say where it is opened. But I feel that it might be opened at Pune air port. Because my baggage came at last, even though I depoisited my one hr early. Kindly ask to your staff members who carrying the baggage and kindly return my money. There is no proviision of attachment of files.

Air India flight AI866 Goa to Delhi on 02/02/2013 delayed 5 hours therefore our connecting flight Air India flight AI111 to Heathrow missed. After a further 3 hours we were taken to a hotel and booked onto another flight the next morning 03/02/2013 Air India AI115 to Heathrow. This resulted in our overnight stay at a hotel in Heathrow being cancelled and our train tickets invalid. In total we incured extra costs of £151.09 plus the loss of our original train costs of £114.00. The total inconveniece of the whole problem including the lack of airline staff information and no inflight entertainment in my seat row 37K for the whole of the 10 hour flight was the final straw.

I and my wife will be going to Bittsburg from Chennai on24th April 2013 . My booking ref. is 4QI2GX. through YATRA
ONLINE PVT LTD. I need for wheelchair assistance for my wife SRINIVASAGAM/PRABAVATHY who is suffering from backpain.
She also wore belt for the above pain. So I need for wheelchair assisatance for my wife from DELHI to CHICAGO in AI127
on 25th April 2013. She has also confirmed for wheelchair assistance from CHENNAI to DELHI and CHICAGO to BITTSBURGH.

To whom it may concern,

My brother Veraat Singh who was set to travel back to India today on flight AI-102 leaving JFK 1/20/13 to Delhi has been refused boarding (booking ref Y9MTC5). He was 4 Kgs overweight and did not have sufficient cash on him to pay the over baggage fee of $50. He had with him $30 and sufficient Indian currency (We had weighed his bags at home and they were 1 kg under). I offered to give my credit card to them at counter but the Floor manager refused citing air india policy to not take credit cards over phone.

Mr Singh could not even assist him with making a call to me as my brother's India phone was out of signal. My brother had to run across the airport to just make a call to me from the payphone to ask for my credit card number with all his baggage. For the $20 shortfall- Mr Amarjeet Singh misbehaved with my brother- refusing to take his bags - He said ' I don't care if you miss your flight' When my brother asked for a solution from Mr. Singh - he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

When my brother asked him for a written explanation for the reason why he had to miss the flight, Mr. Singh refused rudely. He said he would say My brother had refused to pay the baggage fee and that is why they were stopping him from taking the flight. This is patently untrue as we offered to pay and could have paid when we landed in India or some other solution that could have avoided this debacle.

Needless to say that this is the most shocking behavior to have encountered from a customer service professional. For $20 that my brother was subject to such a callous behavior, is inexcusable!

Causing the flight delay has hugely inconvenienced my brother due to work and family obligations. Not to mention the extra expense we have to incur changing the flight etc

I hope Air-India will make speedy reparations for this shocking behavior. Our family will be lodging a high level complaint in India tomorrow and we are taking this very seriously and will consider legal action and making this news public in India and New York.

Air-India-Complaint-note-30-11-2011. Dear Sir, I travelled by Air India flight No. AI 849 from Delhi to Pune on November 30, 2011. I reported at Delhi air port at 15.30 hrs having boarding No. 106 and Etk No. 0983573609587C1. I had submitted my baggage having No. 0098366375 at Delhi air port. While depositing the baggage I had kept Rs. Around 3500/- in the same bag. My flight was reached at Pune around 17.50 hrs. and collection of baggage was started at 18.05 hrs. But my baggage came at last around 18.25 hrs. Then I moved to my home around 19.00 hrs.

I started to open my baggage, it was not opening properly, because of slight damage of chain. Finally I opened my baggage and I found that there was money at all. It was kept in side top shelf of baggage. I am sure that somebody has opened my baggage and taken out the money and relocked. It is difficult to say where it is opened. But I feel that it might be opened at Pune air port. Because my baggage came at last, even though I depoisited my one hr early.

Kindly ask to your staff members who carrying the baggage and kindly return my money. There is no provision of attachment of scanned copies of tickets.

I am seeing in the Air India site that there is no page for people who want to make any complaints . Even the feedback page does not open the page where a passenger can write if I want to give a feed back. I have flown Air India now four ( 4) times long haul. From Delhi to Chicago 1st class, two long haul return flights . Then I traveled to New York in February 2014 on Air India direct flight ,and returned on 8th of March from New York to Delhi by Air India direct flight business class , which took off at 2.30 pm USA time. It was a 13.5 hour flight .

There are some questions I would like to ask Air India’s management . How many meals is a passenger flying for thirteen hours supposed to get on this flight? Any person in thirteen hours I think has at least four meals?

At 2.30 pm when we took off from New York it was lunch time . Normally in any flight , we are offered Drinks , then starters then lunch . before I go any further I want to mention that whatever is given on the menu card , was never available in all the four flights. If Air India does not want to serve those Drinks then why do you even print those items? every time I asked them to serve me Bailys Irish Cream they said sorry it was not available, mind you in all the four flights. If Air India does not want to serve the Liquers then they should not print it. I was given wine instead of Bailys Irish Cream. then no starters, it was direct lunch the passengers slept.

After lunch is there no tea time? when I asked for something to eat , and tea, I was served these , then I was told that the snacks were lying there in the service area for anyone who wanted to have anything to eat .If a passenger is supposed to get food by themselves then there should have been an announcement to that effect. After that , no dinner was served although dinner time had passed , when asked they said they will be serving Breakfast before landing. I have flown all over the world on the best of Airlines and they serve a meal as per the time of day .we reached Delhi 3.30 pm IST . Is that breakfast time or lunch time ?

The controls on the seat in Business Class I was given were not working , how do you expect a passenger travelling for 14 to 15 hours to sit upright? when I requested the crew they said the plane was full but they will try and find another seat , which they did, but in the back portion of the business class .

In the back portion of the Business Class the middle seats are all reserved for the crew to rest , I can understand that since it is a long haul flight. There were heavy curtains on both sides which were closed for the privacy of the crew. On top of that eye masks are provided to the passengers for sleeping to blot out light , which the passengers use, so why could’nt the crew use these? Although the curtains were so thick that no light could filter through. As I am sitting on my seat , surely there should not be any restrictions either to open my window or not?

If this is the type of service we get on Air India , my last flight from New York to Delhi on 8th of March 2014 was my last flight. This was when I was flying Business Class , and last time I was flying return flight First Class ,Delhi- Chicago with my husband. the crew service was very good but the food was not availability of liquers was not there even though the menu card had it printed with the names of all the Liquers , and they could not say it is finished because there were no other passengers in the first class other than us, the steward said it was not available. 

I came to know recently that one of the Air India flights flying from Delhi long haul to somewhere , I don’t know, it’s transponder stopped working , but it still wanted to go on., but the country they were flying over stopped them and asked them to turn back for Delhi after 6 hours of flight. I have come to know time and again that the servicing of Air India is very bad. I am quite scared to fly Air India ever again , I will also suggest to all my friends not to. I shudder to think what the Economy passengers must be suffering or going through on Air India.

I just came to know that there was an Air India flight going long haul and after 6 hours they had to come back because their transponder was not working,they came back because the country they were flying over refused to let them fly any further , otherwise they wanted to continue their flight.

i travelLed on Air india via connecting flight from hyderabad to ludhiana,via delhi..but while traveeling to ludhiana,air india employees misplaced my baggage at delhi airport and that baggage i recieved after 1 week,and that too in damaged condition,rats have eaten my bags destroying my clothes and valuables..

and even after this too i have not recieved any compensation from air india,this is pure negligence on the part of a national airline of this standard..if they have no decency in taking care of the people and their luggage they they should better stop operating their flights

‘

I request you to look into this matter and provide me with compensation as early as possible

DATE OF FLIGHT-23 MARCH 2013

Flight number-AI 543/Ai 9803

ticket number-0983202656978

PHONE NUMBER-7893998431

This is to bring to your notice a pathetic and harrowing experience with Air Inida Customer service . I booked a ticket from Chennai to Cochin with PNR number YQSCJ, through your AirIndia Website. The page however generated a session error after my net banking transaction was successful. So when i contacted the air India customer care via toll free number (1800 180 1407), i was connected to various executives who advised to wait for a few hours before cancelling the ticket . I contacted them again on this after a few hours and they now advised me on call the Head office in Delhi , for further action.

After so many Phone calls , i contacted the Delhi customer care.. The person who received the call was reluctant enough to at least address the caller and i was left in a confusion, if the call was connected. After 30 Sec when he addressed me in a very reluctant voice , i put forward my concern to him. There was no response from his side again for at least 30 secs, to which i presumed that the call got disconnected. When i asked if he could still hear me there was no response from him and after a pause of 30 more secs, he dosent care to answer my question , but again in a very reluctant voice inquired about my PNR number.

When I gave the required information , he checks on the details and again reluctantly answers that the flight is on 25th December, and also without any etiquette mentions ” hmm Christmas! ” , as if he is talking to an age old friend of his which put me off . While all this while the conversation which i started off in English, he moved on to Hindi on his own will and told me very rudely that the payment was not made . When i told him that i have a reference number from my bank, that the payment was made he was reluctant and seemingly so impatient to listen .

When i could no more tolerate this, i asked him to just cancel the ticket so i can rebook it. Even to this he was reluctant to initiate the cancellation process and advised me to wait for 48 hrs so that the cancellation would be automatically done. Even after my repeated insistence there was no use and advised me to mail a complaint to Air India. When i inquired upon his name, he mentioned he was some Pulkith.

After this I again called upon the Toll free number and i was fortunate enough that the executive understood my problem and initiated the Cancellation, which Mr Pulkith could have readily done.

This i would like to bring to notice of AirIndia and concerned authorities, to at least train the phone executives some phone etiquette, when they talk to their customers. This behavior of one or two persons like this would put off passengers from boarding your flight. I could have ignore this and moved on, but if this is how a women like me is responded to , the i can think how a senior citizen is responded. This is the reason for me writing this detailed mail . So I request you to take proper action on this.

I along with my wife boarded AI120 at frankfurt on 10 OCT 2011 with TWO check in bags.On arrival at IGI on 11th morning we found that one of our bags tag number AI 162098 which had a stcker with my name and address with phone numbers also.was missing.We waited till the last after which the staff ther took us to the Baggage Service counter.At this place it took the Air India staff more tan one hour to register our report.They told us our bag will be sent to our place witin the shortest time.Now I am trying to reach them at least four to five times everyday.No one picks up the phone.I could reach the help line numbers twice and they sai it is under tracing.

I am a senior citizen of 72 yrs being made to go through this mental agony and torture.All my personal clothing and a few of my wife’s along with our purchases and gifts from our son were packed in this bag.These were all branded clothe from Marks& Spencers.Please take immediate action and help locate my Air India bag and save me from this mental torture.

Air India is indulging in Unfair Trade Practices. AI has created sub-categories under the Economy class which the randomly allocated to customers on booking. No choice is given to the customers to decide under what category would they want to book their Economy ticket in. Also, it is not informed to the customers that should they decide to re-schedule their flights/tickets, they would only be re-booked under the same sub-category. By arbitarily creating this sub-categories within Economy class AI has found a easy way to cheat the customers and extract monies out of them.

Specifics of my case are boelow:

– I have booked a ticket in AI 422 at 1500 Hrs from Mumbai to Delhi. This Ticket was booked at Rs. 5150/ on May 11, 2011

– On the same day I wanted to re-schedule my ticket to AI’s morning 10 o’clock flight for which the available Economy fare was Rs. 5291/- as confirmed to me my one Mr. Deepak from AI’s call center (on recorded line).

– considering that the fare difference was not much, I asked them to re-book me on the 10 AM flight and I was willing to pay Rs. 500 which is AI’s re-booking/modification charges. However, when the request for re-booking was initiated, I was asked to pay an amount of Rs. 2976/- as “fare difference” over and above the re-booking fee.

– When asked why do I need to pay Rs. 2976/- when an economy ticket is available at a difference of Rs. 141 /-, I was told that my existing booking is under “L” category of “Economy class” and the lower fare, as indicated above, is avialbe in the “T” category of the “Economy class” and that they can only book me under the same sub-category which was Rs. 2835/- more expensive for the same class of travel i.e. Ecomony.

I was also told that as per AI’s policy the call center people are only allowed to upgrade the customer and no down-grade. where does the question of upgradinf or doen-grading arise when its the same class of travel. No special/additional services are provided to upper sub-class of the Economy class then why are these divisions created?

Also, at the time of booking, a customer is not given a chice to choose between these sub-categories/sub-classes then why should a customer suffer and made to pay more if cheaper fare is available in the same class? Also, this allocation of sub-classes is arbitrary and is only a means of cheating customers and making them pay more for the ticktes which are otherwise available for cheaper cost.

I was also suggested by one of the AI’s office/agent that if I want cheaper fare, I should cancel my existing booking and make anew booking. Cancellation charges are Rs. 750. This is also a device of deceiving and cheating the custo,mer and fradulently extracting more money from their pockets. If I was allowed to remodify I would have had to pay only Rs. 500 as modification charges plus the difference of fare but here I was asked to pay more by paying the cancellation charges.

I spent more than an hour talking to the customer care people and also spoke to their supervisor named Mr. Vasant but none of them knew why were these sub-categories created and how are they allocated or what is the differene in these sub-categories/classes. These personnels not only have been given proper training about their work but also do not know how to talk to the customers. As a customer not only has it caused me mental agony but also has made me loose faith in policies and regulations of the aviation industry and department.

I have been forced to travel in the aftrenoon flight while I wanted to take a morning flight due to some critical work. I feel cheated as a customer also because this is a government owned entity and therefore it is required to be more transparent and co-operating rather than arbitrary.

I came from India to Canada at Toronto airport and my baby’s stroller was found to be lost at time of landing. I lodge complaint at the counter and now it is almost six months whenever I call them they say they are looking for. Its being Six months it has been lost. They are neither giving any compensation. It looks bad to me to speak any thing adverse on India side but it is unfortunate that these sort of services let India down!