King of good times: can you help us?

flying the bad times!

I remember the first time I flew Kingfisher on a Bangalore - Delhi flight. The appearance, attitude, service, they were a notch above most airlines I had flown so far. Then they launched the BOM-LHR, which was so fantastic. We said, yeah, look India has arrived in the flying business!

Where there was a chance, I flew only Kingfisher, recommended it to friends. Almost all of them thanked me for recommending them. I did the same thing to my partner as well. When she asked which flight to book, I suggested Kingfisher to Delhi en-route London. Who would have thought that decision would make our live so difficult?!

It's been 43 days since we lost our baggage, the customer service couldn't go down such levels that we had to reach out to the Chairman's office. Yes, we did get several calls, but other than repeating the same thing again and again that they don't know where the bag is and they will report back in 24 hours, we haven't heard anything.

On 27 May 2010, we booked a Berlin-London-Delhi return ticket for 17 July 2010 on Make My Trip. The Berlin-London leg was operated by British Midlands(BD846). My partner checked-in her luggage all the way to Delhi airport. She flew Kingfisher (IT021) from London to Delhi and on arrival realised that her baggage had gone missing. So we filed a Property Irregularity Report (PIP - DEL1810706 / Luggage tag LH106562) at the airport itself and the Kingfisher executives said that they will send the bag across to our next destination which was in Spiti Valley !! Knowing that is not going to happen considering the difficulty even for us to reach the remote part of India, we told them to handover the luggage to our friends in New Delhi.

The PIP report was acknowledged by an executive called Amit Soni / code - 6089 / mobile number +91.9650883131. He suggested that we also call up BMI, which we did. BMI said, the ground handling in Berlin is done by Lufthansa, so requested us to call them. We did that too and Lufthansa employees were quick enough to check if there were any un-claimed luggage in Berlin TXL. None! So they suggested that we should claim compensation from Kingfisher for the delay / lost and Kingfisher can in turn claim the same from Lufthansa.

Except for once, there wasn't a single call / email from Kingfisher to update us about the lost luggage. During our working holidays, we were most of the time calling them for details and irrespective of the reference number, every time we had to repeat the same story again and again much to our anguish.

Since nothing much was happening other than all the time we spend on phone talking to Kingfisher executives, we decided to write a senior officer in their Mumbai office who asked us to report everything as it happened in an email to him. He acknowledged the email over phone, and said he has ordered an enquiry for the lost baggage. He also added that the moment he has an update on the baggage, his office will call us back. Now on this 43rd day, we still haven't heard from anyone.

On 7th August, 2010, I happen to be on another domestic flight of Kingfisher where I wrote about the above incident in the feedback form they distributed. Surprisingly, that worked and I got a call from their customer care office asking me if I have received the baggage or not! Interesting. This was followed by an email from Krunal Suryawanshi - Guest Commitment King Fisher. So I spent next two days talking to these guys (have to admit that they were prompt in calling back, but with no news on the bag, but reminded that the responsibility stays with British Midland and we should call them!). They suggested to write to chairman@flykingfisher.com with the scanned copy of PIP report. We also kept a cc to guestcare@flykingfisher.com and the senior officer referred earlier in Mumbai office.

The attachment wouldn't go through and all emails bounced back. Later we sent emails with all the information on a separate email, for which we still haven't received any response. Last week, I complained on twitter @flykingfisher and today I got a direct message "Regret yr exp.If not yet resolved pl write with dtls incl PNR/Flt/dt of travel to guestcare@flykingfisher.com to enable addressal of concern"

How many more emails do they want me to write to the same email id that doesn't even care to respond? So I tweeted on the following handles.

@flykingfisher baggage lost 43 days ago. Still no news, no compensation. shame on you Kingfisher. Till I get my bag u will see my post here

@TheVijayMallya for last 43 days I have been trying to get a response from ur staff 4 the lost luggage. It's a shame we hv 2 reach u 4 help!

I don't know if this is going to help. But I have decided to write every single day to these two twitter-handles @flykingfisher and @TheVijayMallya.

Till we have news about the lost baggage and we get rightly compensated we will tweet. Let us see if that will wake them up! Any ideas to push this further? Thanks!

Air Deccan again!

HAL Airport Bangalore.
Stuck once again in the Bangalore airport @#$%!

Notoriously late Air Deccan is delayed by 5 hours! Should be sleeping in Cochin by now and instead I am still stuck listening to the "delay" announcements. Shame that I am not carrying a digi-cam to take pictures of the chaos in this airport. Everyone seems to be losing their patience. Looks like this is going to be one more of those moments of OTS (One Tight Slap).

Probably the last time I am going to take an Air Deccan flight!

Flashback:
Seeing me struggling to find finance to organise the symposium in Bangalore last month, a friend who is close to Capt Gopinath of Air Deccan, offered to get a booklet of tickets and I kindly refused. Instead I said that I will be keen to see him attending the symposium rather.

I should probably thank the stars that made me stick to that decision. Probably I would have made more enemies than friends if at all I had offered these tickets for the delegates!!

In the meanwhile:



"Vettakorumagan - Kalam prepared for our visiting guests



Five basic natural colours that were used for preparing the "Kalam".

© GP 2007

München again!

Bangalore

Both of us gave some intense looks at each other.
Finally he budged!

He lazily went through all the pages of my passport, talked something to the woman police officer in the next counter and said,"It's okay, everything fine, you can go"

Gosh! What a character!

I was shivering so much, sweating so much and well, fuming like never before. I really felt humiliated. Anger wasn't just dying out at all. So I called up B who was in Bangalore at that time and told her about what happened.

Well, for someone who have spent so many years fighting for Turkish immigrant community in Germany, this was too much and she was on fire from the other side. She asked me to call up her friends (Human rights group, Press etc etc) in Munich an report it.

I felt good about the fact that I didn't get upset or collapse a bit, which would have been a fodder for this guy to get on me again. Actually, I felt quite proud about the way I handled the situation.

I moved on. Passed my luggage and accessories through the X-ray machine with a really tensed face (as one of my co-passengers suggested later during the flight!) and went on to the first floor for check in.

While standing there, I had the same nasty feeling once again in my mind and my eyes locked with another armed police man who was standing on the ground floor next to the x-ray machine! I wasn't sure whether he was looking at me or was just observing all around. Well, he was looking at me!

He was actually gesturing at me with his left hand while, the right hand was positioned on his AK-47 (or whatever AK it was!). I put my fingers on my chest and asked him if he was actually calling me or someone else?

He nodded and waved at me to come down!

There was hardly any time left for me to check in and I was totally clueless about why he wanted me this time for!? May be the detention that the other guy was talking about?!

Anyways, I went down. He pointed his gun towards something in the plastic tray on the officer's table next to the x-ray machine and asked me, "Is this yours?"

Yes of course.

It was my wallet!

© GP 2006

München

Bangalore

Seems to be in a "flying" mood these days. Or at least memories go back to flights or airports!

Even 10 metres away from the counter, I could feel the negative energy radiated from the moustached Border Police man. I just couldn't make out what was wrong, but there was this strong feeling of something really nasty.

The trip to Munich was quite good. Made some business contacts, even met couple of old friends . So it had to be about something that was to happen.

I reached the counter with my electronic ticket number scribbled on a paper and my blue passport. The policeman didn't even return my "Guten Morgen", instead very grumpily asked me for "all your travel documents now!".

I smiled and showed him the small paper where my electronic ticket number was written and then my passport with visa stamped on it.

Rally of questions starting with:

** "Why are you in Germany?" (yeah, yeah, I have heard this before! even once in France! Next question please)
** "Why do you have a visa from the French Counsulate even when your first leg of the trip is to Germany?" (That was the first time I was hearing something like that!)
**"Why are you not carrying all your travel tickets from India until here?" (I have been travelling from one point to another in the last two weeks)

Initially I thought he was joking.

He wasn't.

Either he had a nasty fight with his wife before he left home or he just didn't like my face!

He was firing on full throttle. I haven't seen any one so rude in any of the airports I flew through.

Still, I remained cool and believed that he was trying to pull my leg.

Though the first question sounded a bit racist, I just explained him that I was on a business trip and showed him my "visa d'affaires" from the French Counsulate in Mumbai.

For the second question I told him, "I hope you know that with the Schengen agreement, I can apply for my visa to any countries that are signatories, including France and Germany. Why do you have to be so arrogant like this?"

Even while he was pushing me further into an argument, I was quite calm. (though it was another moment of those OTS (one-tight-slap!))

Anyways, he wasn't the one ready to listen.

Instead he told me, " NO ARGUMENTS HERE! IF YOU ARGUE MORE, I WILL HAVE TO DETAIN YOU!"

Oh what the F*&^ !!

I wasn't ready for none of that!

It was just few hours before SK was telling me about some of her Indian friends who had tough time with the police as well as from the Neo Nazis soon after they took the green card for Software engineers. I ridiculed her and told her that she was biased.

Several thoughts went through my mind in a splash. I was confident about handling the situation. I knew I would come out of the situation well, but was just thinking about some poor guy who might be travelling out of a developing country and that too with a dark skin and totally lost about the immigration or airport rules!?

I stood my ground.

When he told me that I could miss my plane and that I would have to wait until his boss comes back etc etc, that was the limit for me.

I told him. "Hey Mr. There is no reason for you to behave the way you are behaving. You are most welcome to detain me if you wish and I would like to see on what grounds?!" (Other than booking me for "arguing" for my rights!" I guess!).

I was the last person who was concerned about missing a flight from Munich out to London! I demanded that I see his boss even it means that I miss my flight! I think I was pretty clear when I told him that I knew my rights quite well in this part of the world.

Even while I was fuming and shivering, I asked him to talk to me with respect!

Bastard!

My voice could be heard in the whole hall. I started getting stares from all over and no one intervened except for those passengers complaining about their chances of missing flights because of my arguments!

© GP 2006

Flight etiquette

Cochin

In a short flight (in a small ATR operated by King Fisher Airlines) from Bangalore to Cochin; even before the flight landed; there were at the least couple of mobile phones that were switched on! And, that too, it was when the flight attendant was making the announcement to "Please keep your mobile phones and other electronic equipments switched off!".

Why are we like this?

I have noticed this kind of behaviour so many times and frankly; these are those moments I mentioned in the first blog. I was so desperate to give one-tight-slap to that young man who was sitting on the other side of the aisle.

What will happen if he waits another two minutes to switch on his mobile?

Some of the things that irritates me a lot during flights (and endangers many!) are:

-passengers getting up from their seats even before the flight lands
-passengers opening up the over-head lockers before the flight comes to a stand still
-running to the toilets when the "fasten your seat-belt sign" is on!
-spreading around the food all over while eating
-soiling the toilet seats and pissing all over (mostly in international flights!)
-drinking as much as they can as if there is no tomorrow; just for the reason that it's a "free drink!"
-"violating the -personal- space of the fellow traveller by virtually and physically occupying every single millimetre that's is possible
-disrespect the cabin crew members
-sitting next to a strongly perfumed woman (most of the time in Air France!)

(Nothing against Air France or a woman sitting next to me, unfortunately I am allergic to every known perfume in the world!)

When I requested the young man to switch-off his mobile for the safety of fellow passengers and the plane itself, you should have seen the look on his face! As if I just got into the plane from Mars!

© GP 2006
PS: It's always a pleasure to land in Cochin International Airport. One of the few airports in India that is clean, efficient and a place where you feel that there is some sort of system and governance in place!