Dear Sir,

Subject: Mess up By Air India

The undersigned Ms. Renu Jain and Mr. Praveen Rao had booked two confirmed direct return Air tickets of Air India for Hong Kong flight no. AI 310 for traveling on 21st January 2008 , scheduled departure time 10.15 p.m. through our travel Agent - Khosla Travel Agency. The trip was undertaken for Business promotion of our Company i.e “Dolphin Mart Limited” and all the prior business appointments with our business associates were taken as per the travel plan.

Unfortunately, due to the carelessness of the Air India staff , the entire business trip of ours undertaken with utmost planning was disturbed resulting in loss of business opportunities apart from extreme mental agony and anxiety.

We are explaining below the sequence of events enabling you understand the entire episode and take necessay action:


-Indra Gandhi International Airport ( Delhi ) : 21st January 2008

We reached the airport at 8.15 p.m. on 21st January 2008 , i.e. 2 hrs before the departure time .The AI crew denied us to board the flight as there were no seats available due to overbooking of the flight. Moreover when asked for the explanation a Senior airline official at the boarding counter termed the exercise as a Government policy of doing the overbooking by 15% . They asked us to wait till 9.30 as they were expecting a few cancellations.

At 9.45 An AI official finally confirmed to us that we would not be able to take this flight and have to be accommodated in AI flight 310 which goes to Hong Kong via Kuala Lumpur departing at 12.45 p.m.and reaching Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 8.05 a.m .A Flight Interruption Manifest No. 098 4500 16390 was handed over to us directing us to take our boarding pass on reaching Kuala Lumpur for the connecting flight no. MH 072 by Malaysia Airlines to Hong Kong .

- Kualalumpur Airport ( Malaysia) : 22nd January 2008

The AI flight No. 310 reached KL airport at 8.30 a.m. and the Malaysian airline representatives refused to issue us a boarding pass as AI had not provided any prior notice about our arrival enabling them reserve seats for us in the flight. The AI representative assisting us admitted that the AI Delhi gave them short time to take necessary procedure due to which we could not board the flight. Moreover AI told us that the next available flight was at 9.15 a.m next morning and refused to put us on the first available flight Cathay pacific to HK even though the seats were available in the flight.

The Air India staff at Kuala Lumpur behaved very rudely with us and refused to call any senior official to hear our grievance or provide any help. They kept on harping about their inability to help as according to them it was the fault of Air India staff at Delhi office and so none of their concern. We would like to put on record that we suffered immense mental harassment and stress due to the atrocious attitude of the Air India staff at Kuala lumpur Airport.


After being put on hold for a long time and no satisfactory response from anyone , we even had a tiff with the Air Indian representative and demanded some senior manager/ officials to talk to us but to our shock, we were told that no senior can come to meet us as he was busy with some other work. After all this humiliation and waste of time and keeping in view our important meetings lined up in Hong Kong , we decided to purchase new tickets of Cathay pacific through out credit card amounting to an additional expenses of INR

The following passengers were also treated in the same way and were cursing “Air India”. They were swearing never to travel “Air India” in their life. Following are the details of the other two passengers traveling with us on the same flight and treated badly.
( Business Cards enclosed )

• Mrs. Corinne Thornton
( Human Resource Officer)
Embassy of the United States of America
American Emabassy
Shanti path, Chanakyapuri’
New Delhi -110021, India
Phone : 91-11-2419-8382
e-mail : [email protected]

• Tushita Kaushik
( Capital Markets Derivatives Operations)
Lehman Brothers Japan Inc.
Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 31st Floor
6-10-1, Roppongi
Minato-Ku-Tokyo 106-6131, Japan
Phone : 00852 – 92384654
e-mail : [email protected]

We are enclosing the following documents for your reference and proof so as to enable you compensate us for not only the financial / business loss but also the mental harassment.

• Confirmed ticket copy of DEL – HK – DEL by Air India for 21st January
• Boarding Card issued by Air India staff DEL - KUALALUMPUR
• Copy of Flight Interruption manifest enabling us take a connecting flight to HongKong from Kualalumpur.
• Copy of handwritten note by an “Air India” official at Kualalumpur giving the reason for not accommodating us in the connecting flight to Hong Kong.
• Credit card payment made at Kualalumpur Airport for buying tickets to travel to Hong Kong by Cathay Pacific.


In view of the above, we demand a claim of USD 1500 towards purchase of 2 tickets for traveling to Hong Kong by Cathay Pacific and an additional claim of USD 5000 towards the business loss as 3 meetings which were scheduled for 22nd January got cancelled and also the mental agony we had to go through the entire episode.

Watever refund the Airlines is bound to give us , it can still never compensate for the stress and humiliation suffered by us through the entire journey along with the loss of business due to cancelled meetings at Hong Kong on 22nd January 2008.

As a proud Indian we wanted to patronize our National Airliner i.e “ Air India” and hence opted for this airline even though other options were also available. The above incidence is a big black spot on the reputation of “ Air India” airlines and tarnishes the reputation of the country too.

You are requested to look into the matter and arrange for the compensation at the earliest. In case, we do not get the refund within 15 days time , we would be compelled to approach the Consumer court or any other court as may be deemed necessary.

Looking forward to your positive and immediate response on the above.


Thanking You,

Best Regards,

Renu Jain
9810143640