Air India passenger's harrowing experience while traveling with 72-year-old mother

Air travel is increasing in India; However, in recent times, the number of players in the industry has reduced, undoubtedly leading to an oligopoly system.

According to many accounts, this has affected the quality of services offered by existing airlines in India. In this, Tata Group-owned Air India has become a usual suspect, with one or the other example of poor service emerging every few weeks.

In a similar development, a passenger took to social media platform Reddit to share his experience with the former national carrier. The user shared the example and posted it anonymously on the platform, and also did the same on a subreddit named IndiaSpeaks.

problem with passport

In this post, the user said, “My 72-year-old mother and I checked in for Toronto from Bhopal via Delhi. The check-in staff gave her a boarding pass and she boarded the flight from Bhopal to Delhi at 8 am.''

The user then adds details of the events that occurred and says, “In Delhi, the transfer desk said, 'There is some problem with her new passport, and she needs to go to the supervisor desk on the second floor.'” Now she can get there with the help of a wheelchair. He was found so the staff took him there.”

“The lady from D2 (2nd floor D row) said, “He is fine to board, he has boarding pass, seat assignment”, to which the wheel chair staff said “Then why did you guys make me come so far?” said to? ,

“The woman at the supervisor's desk said, “The people at the transfer desk are supposed to be tough; Fly safely.” I asked him specifically if everything was OK, and he said, “Don't worry.”

72-year-old denied boarding

The user further said about the situation that was quickly becoming unclear. The user said, “He cleared immigration and waited for 5 hours before boarding could begin. He was denied boarding!!!”

The gate staff said, “Your old visa on your old passport is not linked to your new passport, and the Canadian Embassy server is down, so we can't call someone to link it. Also, the plane leaves in 30 minutes.” takes off, considering we don't have time to try anything.”

“He has his old passport with the visa on it. You can see it's a valid visa. You can see the stamp on his passport that he's traveled before.”

“They said we understand what you're saying, but the computer said she can't get on board, so we can't let her go.”

passive system

The user further added the difficulty of starting the entire process again and added in the post, “I asked them to send a staff member to guide me, to which they said someone else from another gate will assist And that's the end of our shift. The other person at the other gate helped us go through the process and dropped us off at the reservation desk.”

“The reservation desk said the Canadian immigration system is down, and we can't link, so wait until the servers are up. Why don't you go and find the Air India ticket counter and ask them if there are seats available and if you need a different ticket.” Can be booked in flight?

'Will have to pay full price'

In an attempt to continue the journey, the passenger sought advice from the authorities and what happened next added to the trouble, as he said, “I went to the ticketing counter and asked them, and they said I would have to book again and It's going on.” To have a fresh ticket and you'll owe us full price.”

“I lost it. I screamed as hard as I could and the ticker counter said they couldn't do anything… I should talk to someone else, then I went and talked to the other person who sent me back to the ticker counter.”

no wheelchair assistance

Keep in mind I had to drag my mom and my bag with me because I didn't have a new ticket and my old ticket is invalid, so no wheeler assistance was provided.”

“After coming to the ticket counter and shouting, they are asking me to wait. While we were waiting, we could not go out of the airport because we did not have a ticket to come back. When we While we were doing this, no airline employee gave us water, any kindness or any polite word.”

“We did everything right, followed the instructions, followed the rules; why does a passenger have to pay more for this? After constant debate, Air India decided to book us for free, and luckily, Canada's immigration website was also online.”

The user concluded the post by adding the following: “The ground staff at Delhi airport for Air India is full of unsympathetic humans who treat passengers like animals. Never again, Air India!!”