Air India to pay Rs 1.4 lakhs to woman for poor service

Air India has landed in trouble for not allowing a woman, carrying a confirmed ticket, to
board a plane from London to Delhi as the Delhi Consumer Commission has directed airline to pay Rs 1.4 lakh, including the ticket cost, to her for deficiency in service.

"The respondent (woman) had intimated the counterpart of appellant at Toronto in advance about her plan to travel on December 7, 2002 from London to Delhi and therefore to say that there was no such confirmation was difficult to believe," Commission president Justice JD Kapoor said.

The Commission held that the refusal to allow boarding to a passenger inspite of having the confirmed ticket and further making no arrangement for stay, if there was no seat
available, amounted to deficiency in service.

It dismissed Air India's appeal against a district forum order directing it to pay Rs one lakh compensation to Geetika Sachdeva, a resident of Punjabi Bagh in west Delhi, for the mental agony and harassment, besides Rs 40,000 as ticket cost.

Justice Kapoor rejected a plea of the state carrier that the woman could not be accommodated on the flight on the open ticket as she had failed to take prior confirmation before the commencement of journey.

The plea of Air India that since the confirmation of her seat in flight A1-120 was done by Air Canada so it was not liable was also set aside by the Commission.

"Whenever an airline has an arrangement with anotherairlines or agency for procuring tickets for passengers, it has to suffer for the acts of omission and commission of other
airlines," the Commission Bench also comprising Rumnita Mittal as member said.

Geetika, who purchased the confirmed ticket of Air India through its agents for Delhi-London-Toronto-London-Delhi, was denied boarding at London on her return on December 7, 2001.

She waited for eight hours before she could get financial help from an Indian passenger Shobit Sinha to reach Delhi. Her baggage which was carried by the airline was
delivered late.