Location/place: Thane (Maharashtra)
Name of company/service: Air India
On 3rd February 2012 my son Rohan Pais booked two Mumbai-Newark-Mumbai (direct flight) air tickets by paying USD 2569.95 in the name of my husband Richard Pais and myself Cynthia Richard Pais under PNR No.Y06NJ. Flight details given below;
Flight Depart Arrive Depart Date
AI191 MUMBAI (BOM) NEWARK (EWR) THU, MAY 10 01:30
AI144 NEWARK (EWR) MUMBAI (BOM) THU, MAY 31 16:25
On the day of the departure, after issuing the Boarding Passes, going through the immigration and security check, the flight was cancelled about half an hour before departure as the pilot/s had reported sick . After much haggling and fight we were put in some other flight – which left 10 hours later, was not a direct flight and destination was New York (JFK) airport instead of Newark. At that moment we had no choice but to accept it as we were desperate to attend our son’s convocation scheduled two days later. With this flight we reached late in the night – originally we were to reach in the morning . Since the distance from JFK airport to our residence is more and since it was past 1.30 am, we had to hire a taxi and shell out USD 150/- unnecessarily.
Due to the continued Pilots’ strike, our return flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Mumbai Airport (AI144) on May 31st too was shown as cancelled till June 30, 2012 on the Air India website. For days we were trying to get thro Air India’s Customer care no., but in vain. Finally when we got through, we were not able to get any concrete reply from them nor any assurance of rescheduling us in another flight. Since we had gone to USA for a limited period, we could not wait till the last moment to know about any change of flights moreover the fare of other airlines was shooting up every minute. Finally, we had to book an Etihad Airways flight from John F Kennedy Airport to Mumbai Airport for a cost of $1777.40.
All these caused us a lot of physical inconvenience and mental agony.
The point of booking with Air India well in advance (February 3rd, 2012) was to get tickets at a good price. But as you can see, we had to spend almost the cost of the two way ticket for just one way.
We have taken up with Air India for a refund as well as for the additional amount we paid for Ethihad Airways flight, but not expecting much out of it.
Hence we request you to take it up with the concerned authorities.
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