Air Deccan cheating passengers, says CNN - IBN. Airlines denies charges

CNN-IBN sting 'exposes' Air Deccan's practices; airline denies vehemently.

BY A CORRESPONDENT

March 23, 2007: It seems Air Deccan, India’s leading budget airline, is in the habit of deliberately offloading passengers at airports. According to CNN-IBN, which conducted a sting operation of sorts at the Bangalore airport with its special team going undercover as passengers in February 2007, offloading of passengers is almost routine for Air Deccan.

However, the airline's top officials have strenuously denied the charges. If you visit the Air Deccan website, you will see a full screen notice denying all the allegations of CNN IBN and accusing it of not checking the facts properly.

IBN has not so far gone back on its claims against Air Deccan; and Air deccan, despite its denials, has not so far taken the legal route against it.

The DWS view: We wish both the channel an the airline continue to stand by their statements. If the scam is true, the channel has done a great job. On the other hand, often, the media does not do its homework and comes out with half-baked allegations. This has to end, and only a court can decide the facts of the matter in this case - and put one of the two parties in their place.

The CNN-IBN team came across a number of passengers who were left high and dry at the Bangalore airport. Complained one passenger: “I reached here at 5:20 a.m. but someone from Air Deccan came and wrote 5:30 at the counter and said I cannot board the flight as I was three minutes late.”

Another offloaded passenger had to say this: “At first the Air Deccan people had written 5:15 a.m. or 5:20 a.m. Then they took the ticket and manipulated it, making the time 5:30 a.m. 5:35 a.m. You can see it on my ticket distinctly.”

“You are one minute late and you lose Rs 7,000,” lamented an angry, frustrated passenger.

The CNN-IBN team found some passengers pleading with the Air Deccan officials to let them board the flight which they think they had every right to do. One was almost begging, presenting his case: “I am going home after two years and just for 12 hours at that. Please let me on that flight.” How does all this happen? According CNN-IBN, the entire operation is engineered.

When a passenger checks in, the processes are deliberately slowed down – first the baggage screening process, then at the check-in counter. The check-in staff at the counter, CNN-IBN reveals, is purposely told to slow down. The result: Passengers are declared as having come late even when they arrive early.

An official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) at Bangalore, who preferred not to be named, said: “Air Deccan slows down the counter work and the sales department sells more tickets. Which means, India’ leading budget airline obviously overbook.” He added: “Low-cost airlines cannot overbook because they do not refund fares or transfer passengers to other airlines.

Air Deccan, on its part, blames all this on systems fault. Captain G R Gopinath, MD of Air Deccan says: “There were some overbookings. Our website was hacked by some unknown elements, and even flights that did not exist showed on the computer. The passengers who have suffered will be getting compensation.”

However, airport officials refute the airline’s version, stressing that a scam does exist and that it is an open secret. According to the Bangalore airport manager, “this has been happening to too many passengers.”

The Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the aviation watchdog, is looking the other way, according to CNN-IBN.

The CNN-IBN team claims to have unravelled more. One a single day, while the airline offloaded 15 passengers and declared them late-comers, it showed the same 15 passengers as ‘No- Shows’ – thus pocketing the ticket amount of the extra tickets and refunding only the tax amount. And, this is a gross violation of the DGCA norms.

Now all we have to do is to wait and see where this controversy goes. If it all dies down without a clear victor, it is a blow for responsible journalism as well as good corporate practices. Let us wait and see.