Mumbai: Air India Ordered To Pay ₹1 Lakh Compensation For Defective Business Class Seat

Mumbai: The South Mumbai’s district’s Consumer dispute redressal commission penalised the Air India airlines for causing discomfort to a retired Indian Naval Rear Admiral, thus resulting in an uncomfortable business class journey. The commission  has asked the airlines to pay Rs 80,000 as a compensation towards his mental agony while Rs 20,000 towards his litigation costs.

Anil Kumar Saxena had booked Business class air travel tickets from the Air India’s Website on April 4,2023 from Mumbai to Toronto via Delhi, for his ‘To and Fro’ journey.

Accordingly he boarded the Air India flight on June 3,2023. He said that his recliner seats in the flight were defective and due to which he was forced to sit in an awkward position, thus causing backache, inconvenience in sleeping and thus resulting into fatigue and health issues.

Saxena in his complaint copy  said , “The said seat was not reclining causing immense trouble and pain to him. After efforts of the crew members, the said seat got partially reclined; but it did not back into sitting position.Hence the complaint was made to the personnel who could repair it. During this period the Complainant was compelled to sit in awkward position, causing inconvenience. As the defect could not be repaired, he was offered another seat.The Complainant has to shift his cabin baggage clothes, shoes, books, laptop etc. lying around his original defective seat. He was forced to the staring eyes of other disturbed passengers which in turn was an embarrassing experience. The same situation was again faced by the Complainant on his return journey too.”

When Saxena raised the issue with the airlines staff, they accepted their fault, and as a compensation he was offered with a  Non-transferable travel voucher for amount equivalent to 75% value (INR 1,18,000/-) of ticket for journey Delhi-Toronto-Delhi with 1 year validity.

However since the offer was suitable for the complainant’s demand of seeking the refund of the entire airfare, Saxena had approached the commission for seeking appropriate relief.

The commission had asked Air- India to file its say, but there was no response to the same, and hence the order was passed as an ex-parte order, thus asking the Airlines to pay for the complainant’s mental agony.