Over 11K plaints lodged against domestic carriers

Baggage handling, staff misbehaviour and poor customer service are some of the main reasons that upset domestic flyers in 2015. Passengers have registered as many as 11,047 complaints against various airlines last year. 

Flyers alleged that they were having a tough time due to poor service rendered by the airlines’ staff related to facilities such as catering, refund, flight problems and baggage lost to name a few.

According to the data provided by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), around 31 passenger-related complaints were reported against all domestic airlines every day between January and December 2015. 

However, there is some breather for domestic airlines as the number of complaints lodged against them decreased almost every month till September. While in January, the DGCA received 1,197 complaints, in February it was 1,092, March had 1,194, April 935, May 858, June 819, July 802, August 770 , September 710, October 727, November 857 and December had 1,091 complaints.

Around 25 per cent of the complaints were related to poor customer service, around 8 per cent to staff behaviour, 22 per cent to baggage loss and 27 were flight problems.

A DGCA official, on condition of anonymity, said they had received 11,047 complaints in 2015, or around five every four hours. These complaints have forced the DGCA to take appropriate action against the airlines.

According to the data, the reasons behind the complaints included flight delays and rescheduling, baggage handling, customer services or staff behavior, refunds and catering.

In 2015, the maximum number of complaints were registered against Spice Jet, Go airlines and Air Costa.

“We have now directed the airlines to give proper details of every complaint lodged and the action will be taken on it. Soon, the DGCA will take strict action against the airlines that ignore complaints,” said the official.