P Chidambaram Claims Student Offloaded As Flight Overbooked, Asks For Rules

Congress leader P Chidambaram claimed that he had the boarding pass of a student who was denied entry into the plane as it was "overbooked". The former finance minister claimed that the student and two other passengers were "off-loaded" at the boarding gate and not offered any compensation for the inconvenience caused.

"I have the boarding pass of a student-passenger who had a ticket to fly from city X to city Y. At the boarding gate, he and two other passengers were off-loaded because the airline had overbooked passengers on the flight! He was not offered refund of the fare or compensation for his loss of travel and the inconvenience," he posted on X (formerly Twitter).

While he did not give specifics about his airlines or the airport where the incident had occurred, Mr Chidambaram urged others who have faced a similar predicament to come forward. He also tagged India's aviation regulator and asked if there are rules to deal with such a situation.

"I am curious to know if other passengers had faced the same situation. I am also curious to know if DGCA has any rules that deal with such a situation," he said.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation hasn't replied to the tweet yet.

The world over, airlines take more bookings than the number of seats available on a flight to squeeze maximum revenue, assuming that some passengers will not turn up for the flights.

When one such passenger had filed a request in the Delhi High Court in 2018, the DGCA's counsel had said that airlines were not allowed to overbook in India. And in the case that they do and a passenger is being left behind, the airlines need to mandatorily compensate them in no time or make alternative travel arrangements without delay.