The phone rang. My daughter's name popped up and I knew flight 9W535 had landed at CSIA-Mumbai. "Dad, I never want to fly this airline again". Hey! no Hi Dad! How are you Dad? She just sounded seriously annoyed. My son then got on the phone and said "Dad, this airline is worse than a budget airline". Now I was seriously amused. Both of them had nothing better to say to me, but rant about the airline - after flying in from Dubai post their mini vacation 5 days away from both parents. For my daughter of 12 years 8 months and son 14 years and 7 months; this was the return leg of their first international flight as unaccompanied passengers.
Rewind - the family had planned to spend New Year's in Dubai and I booked the seats on Jet Airways in September of 2014. A medical emergency threw a spanner in the works. My kids were disappointed that the trip would be called off; but my sister in law volunteered to look after them in Dubai. So, my wife and I decided to send the children as unaccompanied passengers. Since all four of us were on the same PNR; I had to get the same split. "Sir, since your daughter and son are both above 12 years we cannot accept them as unaccompanied minors" is what the call center rep told me when I called to get the PNR split. So, the task now was to convince my wife to travel with them or they could not go; and she was adamant not to travel. My son; who had heard the conversation with the call center agent and with my wife comes back to me after 15 minutes and says "Dad, that guy was wrong. See here it says both of us can travel as 'young passengers' as per the airline website and we can avail of the unaccompanied passenger facility". I took that link (http://www.jetairways.com/EN/IN/ProductAndServices/UnaccompaniedMinors.aspx) and sent it to my travel agent; who in turn took up the matter with the airline's sales office; who in turn split the PNR and entered a remark that both children will travel as unaccompanied "young passengers" under the supervision of the airline's ground staff and crew. My Travel Agent asked the Sales Agent why did we get a different view from the call center? She said that it must be some new kid who is not aware of process. Huh! new kid? So, instead of helping out a passenger the call center cadet was actually doing the opposite because of a lack of training or whatever?
Back - "What was the problem dear?" I asked my daughter. "Dad, had we not requested a non-veg meal?" I nodded. "They said they ran out of non-veg food. Then, the TV did not work for most of the flight. When we asked the crew they said we will attend to it and each time we reminded them they gave us a dirty stare." My son jumped in "Dad we wanted to fly Jet because it is supposed to be the best Indian airline - right? If there was no food selection of choice and no entertainment on board then we may as well have flown Indigo - at least their crew behaves better with kids. We should ask them for compensation" "Yes, and Dad, please tweet what happened to us right now. Let the airline know that just because we are kids it cannot treat us unfairly. Someone yelled at the crew in the aircraft and got the selection she wanted and we who had booked our meal did not. Not fair" was the follow up by my daughter. These were strong statements. The angst in them made them forget that the ground staff at both Dubai and Mumbai treated them with care; which I reminded them of after they finished their snack and coffee at Starbucks. Yes, they did not eat on board, and I did send out a tweet with the feedback.
A friend of mine had just returned from Dubai a couple of days back; and he too had traveled on Jet Airways. He too was not in a mood to shower any compliments on the airline either. "Sad; it is heading the Air-India way - from pride of the Indian skies down into the pits. Can't blame the inflight crew really. The planes are showing their age and many of them are still configured as per the JetLite model (Budget) though the airline says it's back to it's one brand basics (http://www.jetairways.com/EN/IN/AboutUs/OnebrandJetAirways.aspx). Half the stuff that comes in the meal tray is unhealthy and most of it will end up as unconsumed rubbish. Can you believe that the bar was so ill provided for on an international sector? I don't know where they select their wines from?" were his views and they kind of got reinforced by what my kids had to say about it.
Well, this is not a blog to bad mouth Jet Airways. For me, it's my first choice of flying within India and shall remain until I find the next full service airline that can better it. The point I am trying to make is that passengers of any age are no longer in an accepting mood and will vent one way or another. With kids getting more and more tech savvy; news of bad experiences will fly faster than the planes flown by airlines and that is no minor matter anymore.
(P.S.) The airline offered to credit my account with 2500 miles as compensation which was declined; not in the pursuit of more - but the fact that the compensation was not directed to or impacting the passengers really aggrieved.
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