JET LITE/ Air Sahara

Chaos, delays, large crowds… this is how one would typically describe air travel, in India, today. With several airlines and growing traffic at domestic airports, it is essential for airline and airport authorities to train their staff to the highest standards possible.

Just a week ago, I was booked on Jetlite, a subsidiary airline of Jet Airways, with a fully paid e-ticket from Bangalore to New Delhi. On arriving at the check in counter, I was requested to go on a later flight with Jet airways as the flight was overbooked, to which I insisted on flying on the current flight as I was not okay with the delay. The check-in manager, in an attempt to convince me, lied that my flight was delayed by 15 minutes anyway, so it will arrive at the same time. Turning down his offer, the check in staff issued me a boarding pass on the same flight.
I hadn’t seen my baby girl for over two weeks, so every minute of the wait to seeing her was like passing an hour! Alas I was pleased that despite the overbooking, I was on the same flight.

After the long uneventful security check, and the never ending line to the departure gate, the airline staff asked me to step aside and informed me that I was booked on a flight five hours later. It turned out that the check in staff had wrongly entered a flight number in my boarding pass.

I was taken all the way back with all my hand luggage unchecked and my boarding pass cancelled. After what seemed like a ludicrous joke between the staff, I was led to the Jet Airways counter and was given a seat on the flight to which I was not okay with. No sympathies, no apologies…and back into the security check line.

One can only imagine how much longer it took for me to see my baby girl that day. All due to a poor airline that overbooks its passengers requests them to reallocate to another flight and has a staff that is prone to error and shows no courtesy or value for a client’s time.