The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Central Mumbai recently ordered online ticket booking portal Yatra to pay ₹10,000 to a passenger who was not allowed to board Jet Airways flight in 2017 because the airline did not receive the booking from the portal.
The complainant, Sonal Shah, had booked flight tickets for the next day on February 10, 2017, through Yatra. She was travelling to Jorhat with her son for his golf tournament. Though Ms. Shah received a booking confirmation along with the details of her travel from the portal, when she reached the check-in counter on the day of travel she was told by the Jet staff that she did not have any booking.
Since Ms. Shah was not allowed to travel, her son also missed the flight and they had to rebook tickets for the next day.
She sought compensation of ₹32,826 from both Yatra and Jet Airways for the loss suffered on account of missing their flights and also for the trouble caused to her. An additional cost of ₹ 4,986 was claimed for the fresh tickets they booked.
The advocate representing Yatra, said that since they had already refunded the entire ticket amount to her and no additional relief could be claimed. The counsel also said that the portal was merely a booking agent and does not have any control over the airline, thus it was not their liability to compensate Ms. Shah.
Advocate Parvesh Joshi, on behalf of Jet Airways, denied all allegations and said Yatra was not an agent of Jet. He said since there is no relation between Jet and the complainant, the complaints of deficiency of service cannot lie against the airlines. He also argued that Jet never received the booking confirmation and they had also not collected any money for the booking.
The forum, comprising of the president G.K. Rathod and members R.B. Ciliveri and Preethy Chamikutty, found Yatra to be deficient in service and liable to compensate the complainant. It held that Jet was not liable as the complainant was not their customer. Further, since Jet never received confirmation of the booking and the glitch was on the portal’s end, they were not at fault. The forum pronounced an order directing Yatra to compensate Ms. Shah ₹10,000 and pay her ₹1,662 for the difference in amount for booking fresh tickets.
