Jet Airways is cash-strapped and is struggling to keep up its operations. Passengers are being hit due to the Jet decision to ground aircrafts and have taken to social media to vent their angst on social media and flooding its customer support cell with calls. Jet has been cancelling flights on a daily basis and this is coming down heavily on passengers as they need to pay cancellation charges- often more than the price of the actual ticket. Last month, Jet has increased its cancellation charges and this too is coming down heavily on passengers. When contacted, a Jet Airways spokesperson told: “Guests opting for voluntary cancellations are subject to appropriate charges in line with appropriate fare rules and the airline’s policy”
Flight cancellations are making flyers furious and the process of refunds are being delayed. The beleaguered carrier grounded four more aircrafts and this has reduced the count to only 40 whereas it has 119 planes in its fleet.
One of the fliers, Deep Joshi tweeted: “Two of my flights got cancelled 3 days before when other ticket prices are at skies. Nobody was there to attend my call for an hour. Can this issues be resolved.” Another passenger, Manju Lamba, Tweeted about her struggle to contact a customer care executive for four hours. She was then put on hold for 24 minutes before finally getting in touch with the person concerned.
The flight that Jet Airways was forced to ground was due to its failure to pay rent for the aircraft. “The company is also making all efforts to minimise disruption to its network and is proactively informing and re-accommodating its affected guests,” it said in a statement.
Quite a few flights to Abu Dhabi has been cancelled and social media was abuzz with the news that the cancellation was done at the last moment and there was no information about the flight being rescheduled. There was no news about the refund of the fares as well.
Passengers were thoroughly flustered and kept the Jet customer care executives busy with their queries. Jet Airways tweeted, “We’ve been experiencing very high call volumes which have led to longer wait times than usual. Please send us your complete booking details, email ID and phone no. via Direct Message so we can look into it.”
There has been a shortage of aircrafts resulting in the increase of airfares. The travel pirtal, Yatra said that at least 50 planes are out of action or grounded due to various reasons. “The demand is going to be robust over the next few months because of school holidays and surging leisure travel. The airfares were at least 15 per cent higher this year compared to last year, and owing to the current situation.”
