Indian-Canadian actor Lisa Ray has, in a social media post, slammed Air India for denying a medical waiver for a ticket she had to cancel. She said she had to cancel her travel since her 92-year-old father was unwell, but her cancellation fee was not waived based on a doctor's letter. The Tata-owned carrier said it is looking into the matter.
The 52-year-old actor, who had booked her ticket through a third-party travel agent, shared a response from them saying no waiver was available. Airline sources say she had a non-refundable ticket due to which the agent had refused her the waiver, and not the airline.
"Here we go again @airindia. My father is 92, unwell and I have to cancel travel due to his ailing condition. Submitted doctors' letter and the waiver was denied? How is that possible? Where is the empathy from an airline that is claiming to care about passengers?" asked Ms Ray.
In response to the query, Air India asked Ms Ray to share her email address and wished a speedy recovery to her father.
"Dear Ms Ray, we empathize with your concern and wish your father a speedy recovery. Please help us with the email address from which you've written to us or the case ID (if any) via DM. We'll look into it," said Air India.
Sources suggest the airline had offered to reschedule her flight, but she denied it.
Ms Ray, who had starred in the 2005 Hindi movie Water, posted a reply from her travel agent saying no medical waiver was available. In the mail trail, Ms Ray had flagged her father's hospitalisation and said that she had attached a medical certificate.
The international aviation industry works on the premise of different fare classes - fully refundable, non-refundable, and partially refundable. Based on which fare class was opted, passengers become eligible for a refund - that too within a certain period ahead of departure.
The actor had booked the ticket for Rs 5,500, but the cancellation cost her Rs 4,000, which she said did not make any sense. Clarifying her stand, Ms Ray said it's a matter of principle and not money. In the past, she claimed she was provided a medical waiver and a full refund by Emirates.
"In the case of a legitimate medical emergency, most airlines refund the amount of the ticket after providing legitimate medical emergency proof - which I did from my father's neurosurgeon. Why should a customer be penalised for a legitimate emergency - especially when other airlines don't? If this is how Air India treats emergencies, it should also be made public," she said.
Ms Ray's criticism follows a list of high-profile passengers who had slammed the airline over the past few months for various reasons.
In February, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was allotted a "broken" seat on a flight from Bhopal to Delhi. When he questioned the staff, he was told the management had been informed earlier about the condition of the seat, the minister had alleged.
Last November, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram had flagged a flight delay and accused its new management of incompetence. "I regret that there has been practically no improvement since the management changed hands from the government to the private sector," he had said pointing to its takeover by the Tata Group.
A month earlier, actor Tillotama Shome had slammed the airline for not notifying the passengers about an 8.5-hour delay on a Mumbai-London flight. "Upon contacting AI, all they can say is sorry. Zero accountability and no solutions offered," she had said.
In December, a Delhi-based journalist had flagged an 18-hour flight delay that left her stranded in Italy's Milan. It was "nothing short of a nightmare", she said, adding that the delay made her miss an important part of her sister's wedding.
Ricky Kej, an Indian-American Grammy-winning composer, had publicly blasted Air India at least on two different occasions for downgrading him from business class and refusing to offer a refund. He had said he faced issues with the airline at least five times in the past and called it a "terrible airline", but said he would keep giving feedback.
Air India regretted the "inconvenience" caused to him and said it takes "feedback seriously".
