Grim experience at RGIA

Missing flight cost us an additional expenditure of `53K

My family had a grim experience at Rajiv Gandhi International airport in Hyderabad on January 18. My wife, son and daughter were travelling to Delhi on January 18 by Indigo flight 6E 308, that was scheduled for departure at 6 am. They took the boarding pass and checked in the luggage by 5am. To their surprise, by the time the security check-in has completed, they were told the boarding gates were shut. During the peak hours, surprisingly, only two security check-in counters were open. The security personnel, we all know, take their time to clear passengers. While my family members were at the gate 25 minutes before departure, they were denied boarding by Indigo, saying it was too late.

When my family argued on the matter along with other passengers who faced the same problem, the Indigo staff responded in a rude manner. Their supervisor told the harried passengers that Indigo flights never get delayed, and non-boarding of the present flight by some was due to those passengers’ fault. Strangely, on the same day when they took another flight (6E 845) at 11.30 am, it had got delayed by an hour and the supervisor was nowhere to be found. He blindly did not respond to his passengers even after assuring them that their flight won’t get delayed. As a result, my family had to incur huge expenditure and lost lots of time.

My daughter’s visa interview slot had been booked for 10.50 am on January 18. As my family missed the first flight and took another Indigo flight, they rescheduled the interview slot to January 19. By virtue of missing the flight with no fault of ours, we incurred an additional expenditure of `53,000 by way of cancellation of return tickets, booking new return tickets and an extra day’s hotel bills and other expenditure. We are possessing boarding passes with security check-in stamps of the missed flights. I would approach the consumer court on this issue, making both GMR and Indigo as respondents.