The cancelled G8 451. Review on Go Air

Date: 22nd september 2007

Time: 7:48 AM

Greetings to all,

This review is almost Live as I write it.

As of now, I am sitting in the BSNL cyber cafe in Terminal 1B in Mumbai domestic airport, after my 810 am GoAir flight G8 451 (Mumbai to Cochin) was cancelled by GoAir due to "Technical Reasons".

I'll start off now with an introduction.

I am a software engineer working out of Pune and my native place is in Trivandrum.

I chose this GoAir flight from Mumbai to Cochin solely because the round trip cost me 4330 Rs inclusive of all taxes, which is a pretty decent deal.

I left Pune at 9 pm on 21st September 2007 and reached Mumbai airport at around 1 AM in the morning.

Expecting things to go smoothly, I sat patiently for 6 hours and proceeded to the GoAir checkin counter for asking when I could get my checkin baggage scanned and tagged.

It was at that moment they told me that the flight had been cancelled due to technical reasons.

I had flied with GoAir a few months back, and that flight was also cancelled, but I was intimated by GoAir around 5 days in advance and a alternate GoAir flight was arranged on the next day without any charges.

Therefore, the lack of early notification of cancellation came as a rude shock to me.

At that moment, I thought that GoAir would give me an alternate flight, but the lady at the checkin counter didn't seem to know what to do and seemed to be very confused.

I patiently and politely asked her whether there were any alternate flights to Cochin today or tomorrow.

She said there were two flights, one at 350 pm today and one at 810 am the next day (23rd september 2007), but she didn't know whether the passengers of this cancelled flight could be accomodated on these two flights.

She also had to confirm with another person at the checkin counter for verifying whether I was "eligible" for another flight, without any extra charges.

This lack of knowledge from their end regarding their own processes is very disappointing. It seems their personnel requires more training.

They redirected me to the reservation counter and said that I could know the status of the alternate flights from there.

I went to the reservation counter where I could see that a crowd of angry passengers was slowly forming.

The people at the reservation counter redirected me back to the checkin counter and asked me to see the Duty Manager regarding the availability of seats in the 350 pm alternate flights. This was another major shortcoming from their end. Why should only the Duty Manager be the person who knows the availability of seats? The reservation counter itself should be having that information.

I went and saw the duty manager, who said that the 350 pm flight was full, further adding to my disappointment.

So, I asked him to rebook the ticket for next day's 810 am flight (23rd September). This  would cause me a lot of inconvenience since I would now need to find a place to stay in Mumbai.

He then gave my PNR ticket to one of the well dressed ladies at the checkin counter and asked them to get the rebooking done at the reservation counter.

The lady went inside the reservation counter and tried to get the rebooking done. But at this time, there was utter chaos at the reservation counter since the number of angry passengers had increased.

She then gave up on my rebooking and simply gave it back to me through one of the closed counters, without telling me what to do next, and disappeared.

This would have made any person in the world furious.

I hung onto the last thin strands of my sanity and patience and decided to cancel this and get the refund.

The cancellation process was smooth and I filled up the form pretty quickly and they signed and stamped it. They said I would get a refund on my credit card, since I had booked using my credit card.

Other people who had booked through travel agents were asked to go back to the travel agent for the refund. These people got really pissed off and this further increased the chaos at that counter.

Meanwhile, instead of focusing on the problem, I went around and asked at the JetLite counter whether a flight to cochin was available.

They said I would have to take a flight to Hyderabad from Mumbai and then get a connecting flight from there to Cochin and that it would cost me 6000 Rs. There were no other options available and I had to book that ticket for 6000 Rs.

Choosing GoAir has caused me a loss of 4000 Rs and also wasted a lot of my time.

If I had chosen Jet Airways or Kingfisher Airlines, I would have had to pay some 1000 to 1500 more, but I wouldn't have incurred a 4000 Rs loss like this.

While on the way o the cyber cafe to write this post, I saw a lot of angry customers leting off steam and causing chaos at the checkin counter.

And while writing this post, a GoAir call center person called me and asked me wheher I had cancelled the ticket or not. (Does this mean that they lost the form I submitted?)

I told the person in detail about how the air hostess treated me. I didn't shout or swear, I just told them frankly in a calm manner.

He profusely apologized and even offered to check whether a seat was available on the 350 pm flight for that day. (Doesn't this mean that they don't know whether the 350 pm flight is full?)

But I had already spent 6000 and politely refused.

I am now hoping (wishing and praying) that my return flight G8 452 on 7th of October does not get cancelled. That flight is on a Sunday night and I will miss Monday's work day in case that get cancelled.

In the end, I will never fly GoAir again.

Moral of the day: More expensive air carriers like Jet Airways and Kingfisher are worth it.