My Saga of travel with AIR INDIA....(tickets purchased thru makemytrip)
This april I finally did the unthinkable,I decided to travel via air india from LAX to DELHI. I had a 1 year old baby and I thought may be the direct flight by Air India will be good for us...Alas, I was so wrong.
My trip started on saturday, 11 AM April 12th (Pacific time) and was supposed to reach Delhi by monday morning.
I had a connecting flight from Delhi to Ranchi the same day on 14th April and was supposed to reach Ranchi by 5 PM same day.
My whole vacation was for around a month and I was supposed to return back on 12th May..
On 12th of April, we reached LAX airport at 1 PM (flight was at 4PM). We waited in the line for an hour or so..and then finally someone from air India shows up and says "The flight has been delayed till tomorrow 8AM. We are trying to put all the passangers in some other airlines". ok..that's great. We waited for another 1 hour and then one more anouncement "No seats are available in any other airline. We will put you in near by hotel. We will arrange for the pickup and drop off".
We were almost realizing our mistake of having tried Air India..But then we thought anyway just for 14 hours...We waited for Air India bus to arrive, then someone mentioned there is no Air India bus but we will have to take the Hotel Complimentary bus service..Unfortunately, there was lot of rush and it took us 3 hours to hop on to the bus (with a crying baby and lots of luggage)..Anyway, we reached hotel and heaved a sigh of relief..Next morning just before going to airport, I decided to call Air India again...and to my horror they said "sir, the plane is delayed for another 12 hours. The flight will now start at 10 PM in the night". I immidiately decided to cancel my ticket and get into some other airline..Fortunately cathy pacific was available. I called up MakeMYTrip and asked them to cancel my ticket..The person on the other side rudely replied "Sir, we cannot cancel the ticket. We have not heard anything from Air India at this time. You will have to call Air India and cancel the ticket. Air India needs to send a response to us saying the flight has been cancelled. Once that happens, you will get your refund". I quickly asked and how much time do you think it will take to get my refund.."Sir around 1 month" prompt came the reply..Anyway, I was so desperate that I decided to call Air India for cancellation..
Air India representative..
"Sir, How can I help you"
Me -- I am in such and such flight which was cancelled and I want to cancel my ticket...
"Ok.." waits for one minute..and then replies "Sir, You have not bought the ticket from Air India and we cannot help you out".
I told him that I talked to MakeMyTrip and they asked me to call Air India..."Sir, we cannot help you. You will have to contact Air India regional office which will open only tomorrow at 9:00 AM.."
Wow..So I finally realized Air India and MakeMytrip will not let me cancel my ticket...So I finally decided to go by Air India in the night..praying that it does not get delayed again...Just before leaving for airport, I decided to call Air India..and my worst fear was true "Sir, the flight is still in Frankfurt and has not reached LAX. It is expected to now fly tomorrow morning at 10AM "..Here I was, in 1 month vacation and already wasted 2 days in the airport and also missed my connecting flight...
Anyway, finally, the flight did fly the next day at 10 AM..thank God I said to myself..On the airport, I showed my E-tickets (for the connecting flight) and told them since I have missed my connecting flight because of Air India, they should arrange for my connecting flight...The air India staff was very courteous and he said "No problem sir. All the arrangements have been made. Since this is an E-Ticket we cannot do this here.You need to reach Delhi and show this E-Ticket and you will get your connecting flight ticket from Delhi to Ranchi.." I finally was getting happy with the Air India service...I thought at least they care a little...I was going to be so wrong...read on..
We reached Delhi Tuesday (15th April) evening at 6PM..I went straight to Air India office and showed them my ticket and told them everything...It was a small office with around 20 (most of them young guys and girls) people having fun..one young guy was sitting on a small window and taking the request..He had absoulutely no idea what he needed to do..So he looks here and there and finally says he needs to check with his senior. Comes back in 20 mins..and says he need to fill a form which I need to show in another office nearby for the ticket..Ok Grrt..So he took another 30 minutes..filling the form and re-filling it...and then gives it to me..Time 7:30 PM...I went to this other office (Supposedely Indian Airlines domestic). It was again a small office with lots of people..One word to describe the office "CHAOS"...Anyway, I was not sure whom to talk to, So I got hold of one person and told him everything..Even before I finish, he quips "Sahab khana kha rahe hai. wait (Boss is having his dinner. wait)" So I waited for 20 more minutes..then boss comes out "Kya hai (What do you want )" he asks very rudely..I told him my story and showed him the form. He stares at the form and says "Kya haiyeh. Isse kuch nahi hoga..wapas jaha se lekar aaye ho wahi ja kar do..(What is this form? This is of no use. Go and give the form back to the office..)" He throws the form at me and goes away...My baby was tired and was now crying...(Time 8:00 PM)...
I then went back to the same office and got very angry at the guy sitting on the window...The guy says "I was not aware of this. Let me call my boss"..Boss comes after half an hour and says , your connecting flight was with Deccan Airlines. We can only issue ticket if it is from Air India..I told him I was promised a connecting flight back at LAX airport and I had missed my flight because of Air India..
He said "Sorry, I cannot help. We can put you in a hotel for today night and then you will have to call up Deccan and get new ticket"...(time 9:00 PM)..I finally was so pissed off with Air India..that I called a cab and took the nearest hotel...
Same night, I started calling all the airlines starting with Deccan first and to my bad luck, there was no tickets available for the next 2 days..We were almost in tears..4 days delayed (in a 30 days vacation)...
Finally, I reached home on thursday night...And I had to pay 3 times more then my initial connecting flight ticket...
Anyway, I thought my torture has ended..Boy I was so wrong...
Since I had reached home almost 4 days late, I decided to change my return date from 12th....Initially I was not sure whether to go on 17th or 18th..so I decided to change the tickets to open tickets..Little did I realize my torture was again about to start.
On 2nd May, I called Air India and asked them to change my tickets to open ticket..The guy said, it will cost me $125 per ticket and I said fine... I decided to call them once again just to confirm if my ticket was changed to open ticket and they said "yes sir, Your tickets are now open ticket"..Grrt, I heaved a sigh of relief..On 12th may we finally decided to finalize our tickets for 17th may and thats when the torture started again...
I called up Air India and told them that I have an open ticket and I want to confirm it for 17th may. The air India representative waits for a minute and says "Sir, this cannot be done" what, I asked him why..."Sir, connectivity is down..call in the morning"....I called up again in the morning...And the representative says "Sir, you have purchased your ticket from MakeMytrip. You need to call them for date change" ...I told her, I have changed it to open ticket by calling Air India and at that point they said nothing....and she replies "I cannot help you. We dont have the authority. You need to call makemytrip"..I decided to call Makemytrip...MakeMytrip representative "Sir, You have purchased ticket from MakeMytrip USA. You need to call them". Oh grrt. So now I have to make ISD call...Anyway, I decided to call MakeMyTrip, USA and I get the line in 5 minutes...The representative waits for a minute and says "Sir, this is a open ticket and you need to call Air India to confirm the ticket..." What ?? I was getting so pissed off..And decided to call Air India again..Another representative and I get the same answer "You need to call the Dealer from which you bought the ticket"...Wow..I called makemytrip USA again..and this time the person says "we will contact air India and we will inform you within 12 hours" It was already 13th night.
On 14th morning, I called up MakeMytrip again, and to my surprise the MakeMytrip representative had no idea what I was talking about...He said "Sir, I dont see any request has been made to Air India. I will put up the request for you. You will have to wait for another 12 hours..Our system still shows that you flew on 12th May". Finally, he said he has put the request for me.. 14th Night, I called up MakeMyTrip again, "Sir we have not heard from Air India till now. We will contact you as soon as we hear from them."
15th Morning, I called up MakeMyTrip again "Sir, we are sorry but since you changed your ticket dates directly from Air India, we cannot help you out. Please call up Air India and they will be able to help you"..One more day wasted and I was still without confirm ticket....I decided to give Air India another try..To my surprise Air India representative says "Yes Sir, we can help you out". She takes another minute or so and then tells me "The ticket has been confirmed for 17th May"
I was so happy but alas it was short lived...She continued "You need to come with your passport to Delhi office in another 6 hours or your ticket will be cancelled" What ??? I told her I am in Ranchi and there is no way I can reach Delhi office in 6 hours (Distance of more then 1000 KM)..but she repeated "Sir, I cannot help you. That's mandatory..".Finally I called up my brother in Delhi and asked him to visit the Delhi office. I sent him the xerox of my passport hoping that will do..My brother immidiately went there..and the girl on the counter said "Xerox copy is no good. You need to bring color copy of his passport". In one hour my brother took the coloured copy back...and the same girl replies "I am about to leave office. So you will have to wait for another person..My brother waits for another hour and then the new person calls him..He looks at the passport photo copy and says "What is this?? without passport, I cannot do anything"..My brother tells him, just now the other lady told us that this is ok..and he says rudely "No..dont waste my time..I cannot help...if the other lady told you so then wait for her to return tomorrow morning and get the work done"...My brother felt that he wanted some kind of bribe..but I asked him to return..I was getting so pissed off with the whole episode that I was thinking of taking another airline...One last time, I decided to call MakeMyTrip again..I told them you can charge whatever you want but get my tickets confirmed for 17th May...The moment they heard off money, MakeMyTrip representative was much more receptive..He said it will cost me $225 per ticket..I was desperate and I said that is fine...Finally on 16th morning, MakeMyTrip confirmed my ticket and I heaved a sigh of relief and we flew back on the 17th May...
In this whole episode, I had wasted 4 days due to delayed flight and another 4 days to get my ticket confirmed...
In the last 4 days, I was with either Air India folks or with MakeMyTrip..
Its a shame that an international airline like Air India operates like this..And its much more shameful that companies like makemytrip does not care about its customer once you have bought the tickets and paid your money...This trip has taught me 2 very important things..Stay away from Air India and never ever buy tickets from MakeMyTrip (or for that matters any company located in India)....
So finally, remember "Do not fly Air India and Do not make your trip thru MakeMyTrip"..Both sucks big time...
