I guess I fully believe what Gapodi has posted here. We have had a similar exp with Air India when my mother-in-law was to go back to India from Toronto. We cfmd + cfmd + recfmd + recfmd the tkts. The AI off in Toronto also affixed some kind of sticker that shows cfmn # and we were told there won't be any prob. She was to take Air Canada flight from Toronto to London and from there AI to Mumbai. We were infmd by the AI agent that we DO NOT have to get any cfmn from Air Canada as AI has several seats every day in Air Canada flights for such passengers and that AI handles the seat allocation and cfmn of those seats. Even when I called Air Canada, the CSR asked me to get in touch with AI !!!!!!!!!

We reached the airport way before the sch time and were in the queue as usual....for boarding pass of Air Canada flight goint to London. As she walked on to the counter...the Air Canada agent says that she doen't have the booking for this flight so she can't be issued a boarding pass....so we argued abt the sticker on the tkt and we were told that AI agent never communicated this cfmn # and as such they won't be able to issue her the boarding pass...they sure did offer the later flight but then we couldn't take that risk as the connecting flight at London was just 30 mins apart.....we couldn't take the risk of her getting stranded at London all alone.....so we were asked to contact AI off for further Q.....sure enough it was 5.30 pm EST and the AI off in Toronto closed. I ended up spending approx $30-$50 in long dist calling cards CAD to find the tel # of Vancouver off, San Francisco off...contact them.....and ending with NO HELP.

The other day I had to take a day off from the off (I was then working with a call centre with no sick leave allowed ).....the AI agent didn't even have a courtesy to apologise....and said the only way they can "HELP" us is by giving her a seat on Air Canada flight going to Paris and a connecting AI flight from there to Mumbai....if we didn't choose that option then she wouldn't get any seats for another 15-20 days ?????? and we were supposed to say either YES or NO in like five mins....what a blackmail......we had to take it up as 6 month VISA were abt to exp and so was her medical insurance

With that option came the trouble of getting a transit visa for Paris.....AI off had all the neccessary forms and paerwork ready for transit visa to Paris. It was apperant that many other cust went thru the same exp. We had to pay for transit VISA as well for no fault on our part...when I tried getting a compensation from the mgr of AI off....the ans was a flat and rude "NO" and I was told that if I wanted to lodge a complaint......I can do so...I felt there must have been many such cases in the past coz the way they replied to all my Qs was as if they had gone thru this exp many a times......they were not sorry at all....I guess it may not be in their hands and that they are just part of the SYSTEM....

Moral of the story....NEVER FLY AIR INDIA

I feel sad coz it's our own country'd main airlines.......

Gapodi do let us know if you do really get EURO 200

chow

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Let's help each other to grow & prosper in Canada

Gapodi, did you get your EURO 200.00 back ?

let us know...

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Let's help each other to grow & prosper in Canada

Quote:

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Orginally posted by reachash

Gapodi, did you get your EURO 200.00 back ?

let us know...

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Gapodi,

Whatever you wrote, I experienced the same thing word for word in 1995 Dec flying from Delhi to New York.

After 4 days of haggling, a whole bunch of us finally got into a plane which flew to Bombay and then the whole yelling and screaming started all over again. Then they put us in a plane which flew back to Delhi (!!!) and then to Paris with more yelling and screaming. At PAris, things started improving with, by some divine mercy, British Airways got involved.

BA took us all, put us in a hotel for the night in Paris and then offered seats to anywhere in the US. So, from paris, I flew BA to London and then onto Pittsburgh instead of NY where I was a student at that time.

AI is a s**t hole full of corrupt and totally incompetent morons working for it. So is Indian Airlines. That was the last time I flew AI and IA. I used Kuwait and KLM on future flights along with Jet Airways.

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Dimple2001

Its also happend to me once with Air India and I did not get any compensation for that. Trust me go with good airline; you need to pay just few extra bucks and have piece of mind.

So sad to say but our own country's Airline is the worst..i went to hyd during my visit and the company booked Indian airline, for a 2 hr flight my delays were 2 hr while going and 6 hrs while coming..reason flight from bangalore hasnt come ..so be patient

in the meantime they said u can ggo and have snacks ..pay at ur own dont expect us to pay

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Ashish

Just to let everyone know that I did receive the compensation money promptly from local office of Air India.
At least the North American office of AI was prompt, kept me updated and finished off this sordid saga quickly.
In the end I received one third of what other airlines paid on the spot in India itself and had to go through so much crap. The compensation offered barely equalled the loss of wages that I lost because of this 24 hour delay.
Fly like a MAHARAJA ???? NEVER EVER AGAIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!