Click to play videoMumbai: All is not well with the country’s premier low-cost airline. Air Deccan was caught bending rules and overbooking passengers to make a fast buck, in an expose last week by CNN-IBN. The airline refuted the claims and said it welcomes an enquiry by the Director General of Civil Aviation.
But even before the enquiry could take its course, CNN-IBN found yet another instance of a passenger being offloaded mid-way on his flight, and being over-charged by the ticket booking staff. The passenger was charged for 4 tickets while he had asked only for one. His credit card details were taken on phone by the ticket booking staff of Air Deccan and he was told that the system hasn’t been able to process the request.
Only after seeing the credit card statement, did he realise that he had been charged four times the amount of the ticket.
“Whatever refund they give now, its not going to compensate the amount of stress I have gone through. So much of time was wasted in this effort, which caused loss to my business in Kandla,” said M S Partha Sarthy general manager with Sai Shipping Corporation in Mumbai.
Sarthy had called Air Deccan on February 27 and asked to book one ticket for Kandla for March 1. He gave his card number but was told the booking could not be made. The next day on checking his credit card records he realized that 4 tickets to Kandla were booked on his name charging him Rs 14,000. The money has not been reimbursed to him as yet.
The aggrieved customer got in touch with the airline on February 28. He was offered a ticket to kandla for March 1. But when the flight reached Mumbai airport, he was offloaded after being told that the flight was already full along with 18 other passengers.
“The funniest thing is—the man at the counter- the manager said that it is overbooked. Some 18,20 passengers were offloaded. Perhaps its happening frequently with this carrier,” said Sarthy.
Air Deccan had refuted CNN-IBN's reports of overbooking. Air Deccan MD Capt G R Gopinath had defended the airline against the charges of overbooking. He claimed that systems do not allow overbooking at Air Deccan. “It is linked directly to the bank and the IT system and we don't control it. The moment the capacity is reached it does not generate a ticket. On each day there are 8-10 passengers available,” he said.
No matter what the airline official claims, bitter experiences told by the passengers hint that there is sheer mismanagement and chaos at the country's premier low cost airline.
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