Grounded airline takes spice out of jet-set’s plans

LUCKNOW: When Dr Hasan Zaidi, a city based cardiologist, planned a family tour to Andaman and Nicobar islands four months ago, little did he know that he would be trapped, following possibility of last-minute cancellation of Spice Jet flight from Chennai to Port Blair. Having routed his trip through a tour operator, he paid for the package that not only included his travel but also his boarding and lodging charges.
With chances of flight cancellation looming large, Dr Zaidi had no option but to pay much higher on-spot charges as a stand by to keep his date with the exotic island and avoid losing out his boarding and lodging charges, which are non-refundable. A number of such cases have been reported in the week of the airline going on a flight cancellation spree.
“We had planned holidays four months in advance when air fares were reasonable,” said Dr Zaidi. At that time, air fare from Chennai to Port Blair and back cost Rs 15,000 per person. This is apart from air fare the family paid for flying to Chennai via Delhi. A family of four, Zaidis paid over Rs 1.5 lakh for ground services from Port Blair that included local travelling, boarding and lodging.
All plans appeared grounded when they learnt of cancellation of a number of Spice Jet flights. They immediately called up their tour operator and sought to know if their trip could be cancelled and the package be refunded. However, that was not to happen—the ground services once paid were not refundable. Zaidis now had only one option left—go in for on-spot fares which are alarmingly high. Eventually, they asked their tour operator to buy additional tickets from Jet airways which cost Rs 36,000 per person.
“The hype of flight cancellation has set alarm bells ringing among the flyers. They are asking us to buy tickets of other flights as a standby so that they don’t have to cancel their trip and lose boarding and lodging charges already paid,'' said Prateek Hira, a city based tour operator. He said eventually the axe falls on the tour operator who is asked to refund the package, which is not possible.
Neeraj Roy, a business executive too had planned a trip to Kerala this winter. “I had bought flight tickets for Vishakhapatnam via Mumbai three months ago. The flight has been cancelled and we have applied for refund,” he said. Kirti Srivastava, another city based tour operator said there is a panic among people as they have started applying for cancellation of tickets following apprehension of flight getting cancelled.