BENGALURU: A year-end trip planned by an HR professional with his family and pet dog from Bengaluru to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh has now gone completely haywire thanks to a pilot of Air India refusing to allow the poodle to board the flight. This despite the pet being declared `fit to fly’ by the airline crew at the airport and a Boarding Pass issued to `Fluffy’ too.
Sachin Shenoy with his wife Uma and daughter Aarya left from their house at Varthur by 11.20 am this morning for their 5.10 pm Air India flight (AI 503) to New Delhi. The distraught family returned home by 10.30 pm on Saturday with their pet and baggage and have decided to cancel their vacation. It also included celebration of his wife’s birthday on December 25 at Dalhousie. Over Rs 4 lakh has been spent on travel and hotel booking.
Shenoy told The New Indian Express, “We had booked the tickets three months ago for our trip. I was constantly in touch with Air India staff on calls and mail and kept discussing about our 18-month-old pet. We have taken our poodle with us on many road trips and never encountered problems anywhere. I was repeatedly told Air India is a pet-friendly airline and I could take it in the cabin with me. So I booked through them,” he explained.
As per their rules, the pet needs to be brought to the airport and someone issues a `Fit to Fly’ certificate. The pet needs to be less than 5 kg. “The fitness was okayed by the airline by some staffer, not any vet. All of us including Fluffy were issued boarding passes. I paid Rs 4,000 for her pass alone. When we were waiting at Boarding gate 17, the staff there told us that we could board the flight leaving the pet behind! Or my wife and daughter could board the flight leaving the pet with me! The pilot was not okay with taking the pet on board was the reason given,” he said. “We are all terribly upset over the whole incident, particularly my 12-year-old daughter,” Shenoy said.
The family had spent Rs 58,000 for their cancelled trip to Delhi, including Rs 15,000 as excess baggage. “After we were denied boarding, we had to wait another three hours at the airport for Air India to retrieve our check-in baggage and hand it over to us. We could leave the airport only after 8 pm and have returned.”
Shenoy took a video of their plight and released it on social media. Air India responded thus on twitter: “The Commander of the flight was not fully satisfied with the cage and muzzle of the pet which is why he could not allow it to be carried in the cabin. Our laid down Policy for the Carriage of Pets on the Domestic Flights clearly mentions that “pet carriage is subject to the approval of the commander of the flight. Air India later tweeted that as a good will gesture, the family would be permitted to fly with the same tickets tomorrow and asked them to accept the offer.
The family said that no one from Air India had contacted them about this arrangement and these responses were put out on Twitter by them following social media outrage. “If they genuinely wanted to help us out, they should have reached out to us personally by now. It is 11.27 pm already,” he added.
“I had made bookings at ITC in Amritsar, Dev Bhoomi in Dharmashala and a cottage at Dalhousie and Chamba for our 12-day trip. I have started the process of cancelling them all now. I have spent nearly Rs 4 lakh on all of them. But lost my money as I had paid in advance for them all. A pre-booked car was waiting at Amritsar to pick us up when we are the airport here,” Shenoy said.
Ajay Joe from Delhi tweeted to the report saying: Your group chairman Ratan Tata is a dog lover with a shot of him with his pets.