IndiGo charges Rs 9,000 for 'infant ticket', customer moves DGCA

New Delhi, Mar 1:An IndiGo airline customer has accused the budget carrier of charging Rs 9,000 for an infant ticket on a domestic flight for non-production of birth certificate at the time of travel and has approached DGCA on the matter.

The complainant, Sanjai Sharma, has also alleged that the airline issued a confirmed ticket (booking reference Q2U14Y) without seat number.

"The infant ticket was converted to adult ticket and (IndiGo) charged Rs 9,115 for the ticket just because my wife was not carrying a birth certificate for the child. "At the airport, IndiGo exploited the situation and made a traveller pay exorbitantly by such practice," Sharma alleged in his complaint to DGCA last week, adding that the airline deducted another Rs 3,600 from two pre-booked return tickets after he cancelled them in protest.

When contacted, IndiGo said that a fresh reservation was made for the infant as the mother was not carrying a birth certificate, which is mandatory at the time of travel.

"An IndiGo passenger PNR Q2U14Y booked on the Bom-Del flight on February 18, 2015, was not carrying the birth certificate for the two-year-old child travelling along with his mother... Consequently, a fresh reservation was made for the infant for which a sum of INR 8,124 was charged while the infant fee of INR 1,000 was adjusted in this new PNR," the airline said in a statement to PTI.

Both mother and child were accommodated on the next scheduled flight due to unavailability of seats, post the passenger's consent, it added.

Alleging that the airline had charged a hefty sum for a flight which took off after a delay of more than two hours, Sharma has also questioned as to why it does not share such instructions (about carrying birth certificate) at the time of booking the flight.

"The flight was delayed by one hour but the message (to the passenger) was sent three hours prior to the departure. The 12:45 flight finally took off at 2:45 P.M., after a delay of two hours. "Would IndiGo compensate for the pain and agony caused by this delay?" Sharma asked in his complaint.

Sharma told PTI over phone from Mumbai that he approached DGCA after IndiGo failed to provide a satisfactory response to his complaint. "I cancelled the return ticket, which I had booked for the return journey to Mumbai on February 20 in protest and... it deducted Rs 1,800 for each," he said.

"All this indicates that IndiGo is not concentrating on providing services but trying to make profits by finding causes and means to harass passengers," the complainant alleged.

PTI