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Sandeep Rana
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 15
General manager-cum-chief officer of Air India, Sector 34, was ordered by the UT Consumer Forum to pay Rs 27,000 to a complainant for delay of 80 minutes in landing of the flight from Nagpur to Delhi.
Ashok Gupta, a resident of Sector 36, in his plaint averred he travelled from Chandigarh to Nagpur to attend a workshop on August 24 last year. However, while returning on August 25, he boarded the Air India flight at Nagpur in the morning and the flight reached New Delhi airport at 12.05 pm while it was scheduled to land at 10:45 am. Thus, the flight was 80 minutes late and it took 35 minutes to reach the luggage at belt.
It was further added under pressure of being late, the complainant caught a taxi. He somehow reached the SpiceJet counter where he was told the boarding was already closed and he had missed his flight due to late reporting.
Ultimately, he had to travel by a Volvo bus to Chandigarh, which caused a lot of mental agony and physical harassment.
In its reply, Air India said the flight had started from Nagpur on time and it was only at Raipur that it had to perforce re-route its flight path on the directions of the Air Traffic Controller, which was beyond the control of the answering of the airline, therefore, there was no deficiency on its part.
“....there is no iota of evidence in the shape of correspondence exchanged for the revised route plan as alleged to be instructed by the Air Traffic Controller...our observation concludes that due to arbitrariness of the opposite party, the flight reached Delhi beyond its scheduled time owing to which the complainant missed his connecting flight, which caused him a lot of humiliation, inconvenience and mental agony apart from financial burden. Thus, it is a clear cut deficiency on part of the opposite party,” said the forum order.
It has directed Air India to pay Rs 20,000 as compensation for causing financial loss and harassment while Rs 7,000 as litigation fee to the complainant.
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