Air India delays refund to its customer

PERILS OF BOOKING A TICKET FROM AIRINDIA WEBSITE

By Debkumar Bhadra  |  Musings of an Islander  |  South Andaman

It all started, when I attempted to book airtickets for the holiday that I had promised my family as part of this year’s wishlist.  Choosing Air India as the carrier and www.airindia.com as the website to book ticket was easier than easy since the fraternity, to which I belong are duty bound to oblige airindia with our patronage. As such there was no confusion in my mind thus directly landed at the airindia website and initiated a booking.

Image for representational purpose

It was 06 Nov, 2015. After an hour long sojourn and a dozen near misses, the payment page finally loaded. Quickly but carefully keyed the login credentials and authorized the payment. To my utter dismay, the page after receiving payment information slowly slipped into comatose, keeping my desire to have the booked ticket on standby. The ensuing silence was broken as the mobile alerted me of an SMS in my inbox. Thanks for using SBI … read the SMS. I glanced the computer screen, which from my poor recollection read : Error - if you are seeing this page, contact the call centre immediately.  Thus began an ordeal that robbed me over half a lakh rupee from my tax-paid-savings besides causing huge mental agony.

As directed, rang the airindia call centre wherein the executive said “don’t worry, you will get the ticket within two hours” and advised me to send an email to ecommerce@airindia.in with name of passengers, date of travel etc. I sent an email with the available details at the same instant. In a while there came a reply “We thankfully acknowledge receipt of your mail and are eager to resolve your query. Our ECommerce Helpdesk Team will revert at the earliest” read the automated response.

Next day, 07 Nov, seeing no signs of the ticket coming my way sent another email with Reminder No-1 in the subject line, but nothing except the same automated response landed in my inbox. Again initiated a call, this time a supervisor named Mardu gave an assurance of refund shortly. On his instance Reminder No-2 was sent to ecommerce department with copy marked to call.del. He said concerned person will respond within 48 hrs.

After waiting through the mandatory 48 hours, still there was no response from airindia. Therefore on 08 Nov, sent Reminder No-3 saying it is highly objectionable on the part of airindia to not reply to issue raised by its customer. It is easy on the part of call centre executives to cut a sorry face and repeat a set of lines hardwired onto their heads; they have no stake in the brand Air India. But employees who form the brand need to be sensitive towards its customers, who not only buy those highly priced tickets, the taxes paid by them are used to keep the airline afloat. The minimum such a customer deserves is a human response from the airline within a reasonable time. In my case, the first human response (though it was for the sake of it) came on the fifth day, such is the callousness of the hands managing the ecommerce department.

Since return tickets had to be booked, I was badly in need of the money. Repeated attempts to reason with call centre and airindia ecommerce failed to move the issue an inch beyond automated response. With a heavy heart I wrote in an email to the airline that the situation was akin to a cow sitting on the road. Despite the harsh parallel, no one except the robot at Air India responded. I therefore had to mark a copy of the third reminder email to the grievance cell of DGCA.

My patience reached the tipping point on the fourth day, when a copy of another ticket purchased on a different date was forwarded to me. I was astonished that after sleeping over the issue for all these days, the ecommerce department sent out a reply without even reading the email. At this point I decided to have a word with the office of CMD, Air India and summarily marked a copy of the fourth reminder email for perusal of the CMD.

On 10 Nov, after receiving Reminder No-5 copy of which was once again marked to CMD Air India, the Manager (Finance) E-Commerce found time to reply but could not offer anything other than apology. Citing technical error, the manager in her reply wrote credit will take another 4-5 days. Is it not a pity that an officer of the level of Manager of the national carrier, after sleeping over the issue for five days, still remains unsure, if reversal will take 4 days or 5 days. The Manger (Finance) is well aware that from day three, copies of the emails are being marked to grievance cell of DGCA as well as the CMD Air India, therefore it appeared to me that an attempt was being made to hide inefficiency of the department and save the grace by sending a loosely worded apology. I therefore had no hesitation in returning the favour by rejecting the contention of the manager.

The manner in which my case has been handled (or for that matter neglected) by airindia officials at various levels, it is clear un-professionalism is ruling the roost. Officials who draw pay and perks from the taxes paid by customers and salaried class, neither have time to respond nor possess the urge to solve issues raised by its customers. Is it not the signs of un-becoming on their part? I leave it to the conscience of the reader to figure it out. From the instant experience all I can say is, if you find a lazy cow sitting on your way, save your vocabulary, because there is ecommerce department of #airindia, the national carrier.

Happy Diwali, anyway!

Post script : In putting together this piece, no fire cracker has been burst, not even those permitted by law. Therefore question of noise pollution, air pollution and or any other kind of damage to the environment does not arise.

The post was carried in the Port Blair Edition of Echo of India dated 12 Nov, 2015