On 5th April 2016, I had booked 3 SpiceJet tickets from Udaipur to Mumbai for travel on 11th July 2016 for Rs. 3080 each. This flight was to depart at 14:35 hours. On 17th June 2016 (after 10 weeks), I was informed that this entire flight has been cancelled due to SpiceJet’s scheduling / operational changes.
When I called customer care, they suggested that the only option was that they could shift me to an earlier flight from Udaipur in the morning (around 10am) which would go to Delhi and then I would have to change flight from Delhi to Mumbai. Should I have opted for this flight, I would have reached Mumbai by night, having left Udaipur early morning. I was given the same option for the next day as well. I spoke to the escalation manager Mr. Gaurav Sharma and there was nothing else he could do.
For me to book another flight at the same time, there was option for Indigo of which the fares were Rs. 5500 per person. When I wrote about this issue to the Nodal Officer, Appellate Authority & other concerned people (Mr. Ajay Jarsa, Ms. Suman, Mr. Kamal), I only got one response from Mr. Vikas Poonia from the office of the Nodal Officer that they can only provide me full refund of their ticket and can neither put me on another flight nor compensate.
I asked for compensation if they put me on next day flight for the one night stay in Udaipur for all 3 passengers + the loss of pay / salary / work of all 3 working passengers equivalent to 1 day. Alternatively, I asked them to put us all on alternate flight (different carrier) on the same date on their expense, since SpiceJet did not have any direct flights operating on the Udaipur-Mumbai route. Both these solutions were denied.
I had to book tickets on Indigo myself as they did not assist at all and the fares were going even higher. I incurred Rs.2400 roughly on each ticket, which for me was a total loss of Rs.7200. To top these expenses, SpiceJet refunded the amount of their cancelled tickets ‘after cutting convenience fee of Rs.200’ on each passenger. So, in total I lost Rs. 7800 because of no fault of my own.
SpiceJet charged convenience fees from customers to give them the highest inconvenience possible. Why should customers be liable to pay extra when the flight is making operational changes? SpiceJet cannot even as much as accommodate passengers in a hotel for a night because of their cancellation!
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