Hyderabad: A citizen who took IndiGo Airlines to consumer court after he missed a flight had to attend 15 hearings in the court here, but he won the case by a Rs 1 lakh compensation payment order.
Didugu Suresham and his daughter had missed their flight from Hyderabad to Kolkata as there was a delay in printing their boarding passes, though they had been allotted seats. As a result, they missed another connecting flight from Kolkata to Jorhat, Assam, as well.
There was only one flight to Jorhat from Kolkata, which they missed. Suresham's daughter had to report in Jorhat the next morning for admission into a college.
Suresham then had to book two more Indigo flights -- from Hyderabad to Kolkata and then one from Kolkata to Guwahati, after which they had to travel by bus overnight to reach Jorhat the next morning.
Suresham registered a complaint with the airline, seeking an apology, action against the executive responsible at the airport and refund of the amount they spent for their flights. The airline rejected the pleas. He then lodged a case against the airline before the district consumer disputes redressal commission – I, Hyderabad in December, 2019.
Suresham had to attend 15 court hearings over two years because counsel for the airline kept seeking more time to present his papers.
However, the complainant says he was not required to arrange for an advocate as the case was a Party in Person (PIP) filing, and also said the procedure was consumer- friendly.
The court ordered IndiGo to pay the petitioner Rs 1 lakh as compensation for the ‘hardship and mental agony’ he faced. It also asked IndiGo to refund the amount paid extra towards alternative travel tickets, as well as pay Rs 20,000 towards costs of litigation.
