BENGALURU: Nine AirAsia India passengers from Bengaluru to Kochi and Goa, including a senior citizen in a wheelchair, are angry that their travel plans were dashed after a major goof-up by the airline and a delay in one of its connecting flights from Bhubaneswar on Saturday. After they protested at Terminal 2, the airline put them on flights the following day (Sunday).
While seven of them had flown into Bengaluru from Bhubaneswar, a couple was from Kolkata. Bharathwaj Sampath, a general manager with a private company in Kolkata, who was travelling with his wife Anuradha, told TNIE that their Air Asia flight was from Kolkata to Goa via Bhubaneswar and Bengaluru. “We were going to Goa to catch up with my two daughters and a son for a vacation. At Bhubaneswar, we were told there was a technical issue and we were made to board another flight to Bengaluru which caused a delay,” Sampath said.
After reaching Bengaluru, the couple reached the boarding gate for their Goa flight (I5 670) at 10.20 pm. “I was told by R Khan of the airline to come back at 11 pm. When we went later, we were told to stand aside. The same happened to another flyer Sangram Das and we were told our boarding passes were not passing through the scanner as our tickets from Bengaluru to Goa had been cancelled by the airline staff at Bhubaneswar. They claimed we had consented to it. The three of us neither gave our consent nor were we alerted about the cancellation,” he said. “We called the Central Industrial Security Force for help and after much protests, we were given seats on a 4 am flight on Sunday,” he added.
Das said, “How did CISF let us inside if our tickets had been cancelled? I had three business meetings in Goa and everything stands cancelled.” The delay by the flight (I5 1563) from Bhubaneswar to Bengaluru resulted in six passengers missing their flight to Kochi, said Amit Kumar, an engineer.
“We were taken to the lounge with instructions that we could sit but not sleep. A woman in her sixties on a wheelchair travelling alone suffered a lot and we were trying to help her,” he said. They were all put on a 5 am flight to Kochi. The Air Asia India representative could not be reached despite multiple calls and messages.