Court orders IndiGo to pay Rs 1.25 lakh for issuing Singapore tickets to Bengaluru family on wrong dates

Sridhar, who had planned a vacation to Singapore along with his wife and two children, had booked four tickets from IndiGo’s official website on March 30, 2023, for the journey from Bengaluru scheduled on May 10 and made a full payment of Rs 64,960. The booking confirmation from IndiGo was also provided for the travel on May 10, he said in the complaint.

The complaint stated that IndiGo had wrongly issued the ticket for April 10 instead of May 10 and that the family came to know about it only on reaching the Bengaluru International Airport around 6.30 pm on the scheduled travel date.

Sridhar argued that the staff harassed him for not checking his air tickets prior to the travel and were indifferent to him despite no fault of his.

As the visas were granted from May 10 to July 7, 2023, Sridhar had to book another flight by paying an additional Rs 1,00,780 to fly to Chennai and then board another flight to Singapore.

Vijaykumar M Pawale, president of the commission in the order said, “it is very much clear that complainant (Sridhar) had booked four tickets on 30 March, 2023 using the official website but while generating ticket, staff had negligently and inadvertently mentioned the date of travelling as 10 April, 2023 instead of 10 May, 2023. Because of the said mistake, the complainant and his family members, including disabled child have been into untold hardship.”

He alleged that due to the negligence and casual attitude of the staff, he had to wait for six long hours at night in Chennai airport to board the flight. They arrived six hours late Singapore airport, around 10.30 am.

While the IndiGo authorities did not help in any way, he issued a legal notice on June 2, 2023, and IndiGo authorities did not respond to the notice.

The court in its order directed IndiGo to refund Rs 1,00,728 spent on booking the ticket to fly to Singapore and Rs 25,000 for the mental agony and litigation cost.

In another incident, IndiGo has agreed to compensate a Pune couple who lost their luggage during their honeymoon to Istanbul in Turkey on an IndiGo flight and received it only 15 days later.