By IANS,
New Delhi : Faced with cancellation of nearly 200 flights by Jet Airways Monday, several stranded passengers claimed rival carriers even doubled their fares arbitrarily to cash in on the sudden rush for tickets.
“I had to pay Rs.6,000 extra. This is double the amount I usually pay for my Delhi-Mumbai tickets,” said Annu Kumar, an IT professional, who said he had to buy a ticket from Kingfisher after his Jet Airways flight to Mumbai was cancelled.
“They have clearly taken advantage of this situation,” Kumar told IANS here, adding his colleague, also a frequent traveller, had to face a similar situation here Tuesday.
Chennai-based private sector official Gautam, who uses only one name, said Jet Airways did not intimate the passengers about the cancellations.
“They (Jet Airways staff) kept us hanging for too long and announced the cancellation of their flights very late,” said Gautam, adding: “This obviously allowed other airlines to cash in on the situation.”
V.S. Sharma, who was to fly to Mumbai, had a similar complaint. “The least the airline people could have done is informed me that my flight is being cancelled. I could have made alternative arrangements. Really, this is very, very bizarre.”
But officials of other airline said they did not resort to any undue price hikes. They maintained that if passengers compare the fares for a ticket they bought from Jet Airways some time ago with the current fare, it would obviously be higher.
“When passengers approached us with a Jet Airways ticket, they got a seat on Air India on the same very fare,” said Jitendra Bhargava, spokesperson for the national carrier.
“But in case somebody gets a refund and then comes to book a fresh ticket, it will be at current rates,” Bhargava told IANS.
He said as far as Air India was concerned, many stranded passengers were accommodated not only on the existing domestic routes but also overseas flights that transit through Indian cities.
The national carrier, he said, also had both aircraft and crew on stand-by for immediate deployment should Jet Airways be forced to cancel more flights in the coming days.
“We are in talks with the government and Jet Airways officials. In the event of need to operate special flights to help stranded passengers, we would do so for which we have kept on stand-by aircraft and crew.”
Some 20,000 passengers were stranded after the pilots of Jet Airways went on mass ‘sick leave’, leading to cancellation of nearly 200 flights – both domestic and international.