Booked a round-trip ticket from USA to India using Air India for all flights. Got to India OK (glitch in being able to go through immigration at end of all flights - another blog!!). Attended some family functions, visited family and friends, quietly enjoyed a few weeks in India.
But a week before departure, get an email stating that we are booked on a flight for the first leg back that is completely different than what we paid for. No longer is it via Air India but it's using Air Asia. And it's 9 hours later in the day than the original flight. This means it delivers us to the connecting airport 5.5 hours AFTER our second flight leaves for the USA!!!! WTF!!
There has been no communication from Air India as to what happened. Online, Air India's website shows all their flights from this airport for the last week as Scheduled but no Departed, Arrived or Cancelled. When we look up our specific reservation, it still shows both flights of the return trip are booked and active.
It's in the news that Air India has cancelled all flights in and out of this local airport but they have not officially communicated to any partners that they have done this. In reality, flights have not happened! And third party flight status trackers are specifically indicating these flights have been cancelled.
It took hours to get anyone at Air India to get on the phone to discuss our situation that they have created. They say that we've been transferred to Air Asia so we must work with them. Same struggle to get an actual human on the phone at Air Asia. Then they tell us that we must rearrange our Air India flight going to the USA!! Air India does not have daily flights from that connecting airport to the USA. So they're telling us that we must stay in India for several more days and get another international flight arranged because they don't want to get us on any earlier flight to that connecting airport.
This is a complete failure that neither airline takes responsibility to fulfill the obligation of flights already booked and paid for.
We have had to spend many hours of our visit on the phone and online and in email to try to get this all straightened out.
The really stupid part is that BOTH Air India and Air Asia are owned by the same company yet, heaven forbid, they actually work with each other! Just 'screw the customer' seems to be the attitude.
Add new comment