Dear Sir, 19th June, 2021.
My name is Ami Zaveri, and I am parent to VIYAAN ZAVERI (16 yrs.) who travelled from Mumbai to Dehradun on Saturday 19th June 2021 by Flight No. AI-688.
This e-mail is regarding his horrid and stressful experience courtesy with Air-India. I am extremely disappointed and shocked with the way in which my teenage son VIYAAN & his 6 teenage friends were treated. When Viyaan & his friends checked in, they informed the staff at the counter that one of their friends could not travel, so they did not need his boarding pass. The staff replied saying that it was ok to keep the boarding pass. The staff then completed the check in of their baggage and asked the boys to proceed to the designated departure gate. After the kids settled in their seats in the aircraft, a few attendants from Air India approached them and asked them to pay Rs 3, 200 as their luggage was 80kg which was 5kg overweight. When the kids denied paying as they were sure that their baggage weight was not excess, the attendants threatened to deplane the kids. This is unprofessional & irresponsible as:
1. The luggage was not overweight
2. This issue should have been dealt at the check in counter rather than in the aircraft before takeoff.
The children were also harassed about having the extra boarding pass. After the help of fellow passengers and long arguments they were not deplaned neither were they made to pay for the so-called overweight of baggage.
But their horribly disgusting experience had still not ended, as they were again harassed by Mr. Rajneesh Sharma (Air India employee at Dehradun Airport) to pay Rs 3, 200. After further arguments of 2 hours, the children forced the staff to weigh their luggage, and guess what, the 7 bags of 7 children weighed total 77kg. The actual allowance being 175kg. So now technically are we entitled to get an amount of Rs 62, 720 as refund (being 98kg underweight)
I later came to find out that the extremely irresponsible & negligent staff of Air India made a silly mistake, they put 77 kg baggage weight on 3 passengers and 0 kg on the other 4 passengers. This behavior of the staff of Air India put my teenage son and his friends through a lot of mental agony and stress.
I made my son travel by Air India because it was supposedly a reliable and responsible airline. I thought he would reach safely as the children did not have any adult accompanying them. But to my surprise this was a very horrendous and dreadful experience.
The lack o[censored]nderstanding and empathy on your end is totally unprofessional. Truly you live up to your tag line “Unbeatable Service”, but for all the wrong reasons.
I hope the necessary action against this irresponsible and negligent staff is taken and they are meted out with deserving punishments.
AMI. ZAVERI
[protected]@gmail.com