I spent a great month in India and on Sun 25 December, during my return journey to Canberra, I had an experience at the Mumbai Airport which reminded me of my visits to the Australian and New Zealand Departments of Immigration and their High Commissions. The twelve-hour flight from Mumbai to Sydney is over and I have gone through the Quarantine which took out only a couple of packets. Now I have an hour in Sydney, waiting for my plane to Canberra, so I thought I will write an account of that incidence at the Mumbai Airport while the events are fresh in my mind.
Thanks.
I started my return journey from Bangalore on Jet Airways flight 9W 0444 departing at 1:45pm for Mumbai. At Mumbai I was to transfer to the Qantas flight QF124 departing Mumbai at 6:50pm on Sun 25 Dec 2005. As is usual I had spices and sweets and several other things which I bring only if the airlines permits a bit of an extra baggage. We always request our friends or relatives who take the trouble to drop us to the airport to stay that extra 10-15 minutes to see if the Airlines will take the extra luggage and if they refuse we immediately take them out and hand it over to the relatives or friends. At the Bangalore Airport the Jet Airways staff was nice and they took both my bags with a gross weight of 33 kg. They also issued me boarding passes all the way to Canberra. The officer in Bangalore said that the seat allocation for the Qantas flight was automatic and she couldn't give me the seat I requested. She suggested that I go and see Qantas in Mumbai for a better seat allocation.
The Jet Airways flight arrived a bit late in Mumbai and slowly I made my way from the domestic terminal to the international. As I approached the Qantas check-in desk a Qantas officer was in wait for me and she straight away asked me if I was Pota. I said yes and then she gave me the news that I had 8 kg of excess baggage and I had to pay around Rs 8000 as the excess baggage charge. Money is money, it's dear to one and all, starting from Bill Gates so I had to find a way to avoid this not so insubstantial extra charge. I told the officer that 8 kg excess is not all that bad and I have had airlines let me take much more. She was adamant that I had to pay the extra charge. I had bought the spices myself so I knew that the total cost of all the spices was about Rs 500 and to pay Rs 8000 for it was most foolish. I told the officer that I had rather throw some stuff than pay the charge. For some reason only one of my bags was there at the check-in and the one with the spices was not there. The officer requested a porter to go and get that bag. Naturally I also requested to see her supervisor. As I was waiting for the bag and the supervisor it struck me that I am part way into my journey and it's most unfair to ask me to pay this charge now.
I told the officer that had I been asked to pay the charge in Bangalore I would have given the excess baggage to my friend but now I am stuck. I am part way through my journey and helpless to do anything so how can they levy any charges now. She told me that they cannot be responsible for what Jet Airways has done. I thought this to be the most unreasonable response. I don't know how airlines coordinate their operations but as a customer I have checked-in my baggage and that should be that. The more I thought about it the more certain I became that my position was the right one. Unfortunately certainty on one's part and unreasonableness on another's part gives rise to frustration and in my frustration I raised my voice. The training organisations train these customer service officers not in being reasonable but to latch on to this ``please don't raise your voice'' which is sure to raise the other person's voice even higher making the officer win an argument even if in the wrong. Anyways I told them to focus on what I say not how I say.
In due course the first officer's supervisor by the name Ms Anjana arrived and gave me the same line (much like that car rental Sienfeld episode) complete with ``don't raise your voice''. In the meantime the hunt for my other bag continued. This officer Ms Anjana dropped another bombshell. She literally accused me of bribing someone in Jet Airways to allow me to check my baggage. Her exact words were, ``You may know someone in Jet Airways who has checked the baggage for you.'' This is pretty serious and I want Qantas to confirm with me if Ms Anjana has any evidence that the employees of Jet Airways are corrupt and also if Ms Anjana knows of this due to similar practices in the operation of Qantas. This is most serious. Since Ms Anjana has accused me and Jet Airways of being corrupt let me make a far less serious observation that this entire episode gave the greatest delight to the two officers who dealt with me. They were laughing at my discomfort. That action of bending one's head and covering the mouth with hands and laughing is well-known to all of us and these two officers were expressing their joy through that action. These two customer service officer took such great delight in the discomfort of a passenger part way through his journey! I don't celebrate Christmas in any special way but I suppose I can feel satisfied of giving Christmas joy to two Qantas officials in Mumbai, even thought it was at my expense and it was cruel behaviour on their part.
At this stage I was certain that I will have to throw the extra baggage and I was still waiting for the other bag to arrive. I requested Ms Anjana to give me a letter explaining the circumstances so that I can take it up with Qantas once I reach Canberra. She refused to do so. She only agreed to give me her card. I told her that the card was not much use without a written explanation. At this point she walked away telling that she will now let the airport manager know of this. In a few minutes she came back with the airport manager (first name Phil). Phil told me that he will let me go and since it's the fault of Jet Airways he will bill them for the excess baggage.
Phil told me that the two officers had done the right thing though. I request Qantas to respond to me about the corruption charge Ms Anjana made against me and Jet Airways. This serious charge must be investigated.
From the reaction of the porters and other check-in staff I could sort of feel that these two officers were not their favourite. Even after repeated requests to get my other bag, no porter moved and the other check-in staff kept staring at these two officers. After a lot of harangue one porter was finally forced to go and get my other bag but he disappeared without a trace. Obviously the delight these two officers felt seeing me in a difficult situation was not unique and they must do the same to other members of staff under their supervision. Just imagine a humble porter whose very livelihood depends on the whims and fancies of these powerful officers didn't budge!
Now Qantas is a business and a complaint of this type means nothing if it doesn't translate into dollars and cents. I am sure there must be international agreements about not harassing passengers once they have commenced their journey but that didn't mean much when they saw a chance to collect some extra dollars. This is also not the first time Qantas have given me trouble. In 1989 or 1990 our daughter's booking ``disappeared'' from there computer so that we couldn't reconfirm our return tickets over phone. This meant that we had to physically take our tickets to Mumbai (from Vadodara) and lose 2-3 days of our precious holiday time. I had sort of forgotten about it but this fresh trouble has woken up those memories and now putting the two together what can I say about the dollar value of my troubles to Qantas?
I will now not travel Qantas unless it's at least one hundred dollars cheaper than any other airline flying the same route. Maybe Qantas doesn't need my business and I could take it anywhere I like but even hardened businesspersons should be troubled if their employees enjoyed the troubles of their customers and did things to make the journey unpleasant including the making of the most serious allegation of corruption. Will this trouble Qantas?
I will wait for their reply.