Mumbai : Since March 13 all international flights were suspended due to coronavirus pandemic.
Air India has been ferrying stranded citizens across the world on “Vande Bharat Mission” which is also the biggest evacuation in the history and other private Indian carrier Indigo and Spicejet has played vital role as well.
On July 09th India Civil Aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced 15 days window from 12th July to 26th July to ferry the stranded NRI UAE resident to UAE under Vande Bharat Mission.
In an interview we spoke to one of the customer who made the booking online on AirIndia Express website.
People were all celebrating and happy as the long await route was finally started as most of them was without salary for more than 3 months, he said.
The flight from Mumbai to Dubai was full on the 1st day of booking as there was only 2 to 3 flights.
He waited till next day morning to see if there were other options available direct to Dubai.
Usually a ticket for this route is 8000 to 10000 economy class for budget airlines.
He then booked a flight from Mumbai to Sharjah route for Rs30000 one way on 10th July on AirIndia Express website as he did not want to be stuck due to travel restriction and want to start with his job which was jeopardize.
Later at night he then checks on makemytrip website to browse and finds out even Emirates has started this route and was charging its customers way lesser then AirIndia was charging to its own citizen.
Now he tries to emphasize on the words “Customer in crisis” and “Citizen in crisis”
For a business, customer is money but for a country its citizen is the main pillar and if AirIndia which shows that they are on Vande Bharat Mission instead of hoping for help we felt cheated as we were charged triple than the normal fare when there is no salary.
He even tried calling customer care numbers of Air India Express 044-4001-3001 and 044-2430-1930 he asked me to try to call the number while in the interview and when I dialled all I hear was … “call cannot be complete” and he had a laugh and said this is what it is.
He was trying that number to cancel the ticket hoping that he would be charged Rs2200 as per the website information but asks you to call that number which doesn’t work.
Even after the 2200 cancelation fee he is ok to book emirates as its very less comparatively.
Email to customer support has been sent and awaiting reply.
Air India Express is a subsidiary of Indian flag carrier airline Air India have been supporting in Vande Bharat Mission.
Even The US Restricted Vande Bharat flights by Air India as USA was not allowed to ferry and was termed as “Unfair and discriminatory” and customers were charged more than double.
In this interview he said he is well aware that there will be no action to this and no one will be held accountable neither any part of the money will be refunded and he is afraid that even if he tries to cancel the ticket when the refund will be initiated and he is in dire need of travel to resume his work.
PM says Atmanirbhar, PM needs to look into our own Indian Flag carrier which is over charging and how can we use this airline services in future?
