No seat in flight despite booking, Lufthansa told to pay Rs 1.1 lakh

CHANDIGARH: The district consumer disputes redressel forum here directed

Lufthansa

Airlines to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation to a

Mohali

resident for deficiency in service. The complainant had booked a flight from New Delhi to Ottawa, Canada, for his daughter and son, but their names did not feature in the connecting flight from

Frankfurt

.

In his complaint, Manjit Singh said, “When they reached Frankfurt to board their second flight to Ottawa, they got to know there were no seats confirmed in the name of Ravneet Singh and Jasneet Kaur for the flight. They had to wait at the airport and airline officials did not pay heed to their requests.”

After a prolonged wait, only Jasneet was allowed to board the flight, but Ravneet was not, despite both having a confirmed ticket from Frankfurt to Ottawa.

Jasneet broke down at the airport. Thereafter, Ravneet boarded another flight, which was scheduled to depart after 4 hours, but that flight too was not even scheduled to land in Ottawa, but in Montreal, from where, he had to take another flight to reach Ottawa.

It was submitted that in the midst of this harassment and inconvenience, the luggage/baggage of Ravneet, which was removed at the Frankfurt Airport was not put back to his new flight due to which it was not delivered to him on his arrival at Ottawa. Ravneet came back to India and brought the whole matter to the notice of the airlines through its customer relations in-charge, but they did not respond. A legal notice was sent, but to no avail.

In its reply, the airlines said the forum did not have the territorial jurisdiction to try and adjudicate the present complaint, as no cause of action has accrued at Chandigarh and the incident, if any, took place in Frankfurt. It was also submitted that with a view to genuinely help passengers, the luggage was accordingly sent on their respective

flights

and the meal vouchers, offered, were also accepted by them without any protest/demur.

The forum, after hearing both sides, said Ravneet suffered physical discomfort and mental torture in an alien country. It added that the airlines cannot always be spared just on the pretext of overbooking of their flight. Only in exceptional cases of grave emergency, the airlines can have the right to adjust some passengers for immediate accommodation in the flight at the cost of regular passengers with confirmed tickets.

Lufthansa Airlines was then asked to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation to Ravneet and Rs 10,000 as cost of litigation.


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