Consumer court directs Lufthansa to pay student passenger Rs 1 lakh for mental pain caused two years ago, ticket cost

Yadav, in his complaint before the Gandhinagar District Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission against Lufthansa, alleged that the airline had engaged in unfair trade practices as it did not inform him about any prerequisite requirement towards any other visa for en route stoppages.

The commission, including president D T Soni, and members Dr S R Pandya and Hemkalaben Shah, directed Lufthansa to pay Yadav Rs 1 lakh, and also the ticket fare of Rs 67,612 at an interest rate of 8 per cent from the date of filing of the complaint. The amount has to be paid within 30 days from the date of receiving the certified copy of the judgment, it said.

Yadav had sought Rs 67,612 for one ticket and another Rs1,70,576 for the ticket he had to purchase from another airline because he was not allowed to board the previous one.

Yadav has recently completed his studies in supply chain management from a university in Toronto, Canada, even as the judgment on the problems he faced during his first travel to Canada, has been finalised in India. His lawyer Sunil Chhabaria told The Indian Express that Yadav had obtained Permanent Residency status in Canada at the time of writing this report.

Yadav had booked a flight ticket from Mumbai to Toronto on February 23, 2022 for a journey on April 13, 2022. He would fly from Mumbai to Munich, and from there to Frankfurt and then on to Toronto.

The consumer court order stated, “Thus, when the complainant went to check in for his flight at Mumbai airport, he was stopped from boarding as he did not have a transit Schengen visa. He tried to seek help from the airlines and sought a different arrangement but to no avail. The complainant had to forfeit his ticket cost. The complainant claimed that the airline had thus engaged in unfair trade practices.”

Yadav, who had booked a flight ticket to Toronto on February 23, 2022, had to purchase another ticket at the last minute on an Emirates flight to Toronto via Dubai on April 14, 2022, paying Rs1,70,576.

The complainant then, through his mother Pushpa Yadav, on March 14, 2023, approached the District Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission (DCDRC) in Gandhinagar to get refunds for both the tickets on the basis of deficiency in service by the airline.

The commission’s order said, “The airline argued that it was not the fault of the airline that the complainant did not have a Schengen visa that was required for him to travel through Germany as a domestic passenger, that the ticket was non-refundable and that the complainant had himself cancelled the ticket.”

Chhabaria told The Indian Express, “The court found it fit to grant court costs, refund of the original ticket as well as impose Rs1 lakh compensation from the airline due to the mental anguish caused to my client who was forced to stay in an unknown city, with his ticket to a foreign country cancelled and make arrangements due to the airline not informing him about the requirement for a Schengen visa even though it was the airline that was hopping through Germany before heading to Canada.”

The commission’s order says, “The complainant is entitled to recover the amount of Rs1,00,000 under the head of mental pain and suffering from the opponent within 30 days as stated above”.

At Mumbai airport Yadav had tried to seek help from the airlines and sought a different arrangement but to no avail. The complainant had to forfeit his ticket cost

Later, on May 2, 2022, the complainant sent a legal notice to Lufthansa. However, the airline only replied two months later and refused to pay the refund.