Chennai: Passengers miss flight after arguments with AI officials at the airport

Bangalore, Oct 30: A group of passengers at the

airport on Thursday had a harrowing experience and missed their flight to Bangalore following an argument with the officials.

Madhan Ramakrishnan, Delivery Manager with an MNC, along with other passengers who were to board an Air India flight to Bangalore today morning missed their flight after they had an arguement with the AI officials.

It all began when Ramakrishnan along with other passengers were at the AI ticketing counter waiting to check in. "We were asked to go from the domestic terminal to the international terminal to board our flight. They told us that the flight would take off from the international terminal.

Since the distance from the domestic to the international terminal was about 5-10 minutes walk, we all walked to the other terminal. Upon reaching the international terminal we were told that the gate had closed and we couldn't board the flight," Ramakrishnan told OneIndia.

What followed next was a series of arguments between the passengers and the AI officials. The passengers tried to reason with the officials saying that they were asked to come to the international terminal.

Ramakrishnan and others were directed to go to the International terminal

"No where was it mentioned that the flight would take off from the international terminal," Ramakrishnan said.

Another passenger, Laural Marshall too spoke to OneIndia and said that the AI officials refused to open the gate even though they were there 45 minutes early before take off.

"No one helped us. When we requested the AI officials, they said they couldn't help us. There were close to 15 of us who faced this problem", she said.

They even said that the flight will take off even if there are no passengers in it and said that if we wanted, we could go and complain to the higher officials," Marshall said.

Though the passengers spoke to the airport security and even met the Sub-Inspector of the area, they were not able to board the flight.

Eventually some of them decided to travel by train, while the rest decided to book tickets and travel with alternate airlines.

OneIndia News