Travellers to Goa are being treated with disdain by international airlines

It was a
flight scheduled to leave on March 20th from Dubai. Instead it left on March 21
and reached Goa at 5.15 pm making for a wonderful experience for all the
passengers who had booked on the Air India flight. A passenger on twitter
informed the world that they had not been provided with any information, no
hotel stay or food. The staff of the airline had gone AWOL and it was an
absolute mess. This has
been quite a regular occurrence for passengers flying the skies. And it seems
to be happening quite regularly with Goans, or is it an experience shared by
everyone. Aloo Gomes Pereira of Trail Blazers India Pvt Ltd said he was
personally not aware of the specific incident but the behavior of some of the
airlines was appalling. He said “You can sue Air India for compensation. Strong
legal action can be taken. You cannot take people for granted. It is a service
provider and they flouted the rules. A 15 hr delay is not a joke. Whatever the
reason, the clients need to be taken care of as per the law. ” Valigno Dias
of Trade Wings said it seems the airline was not even aware of the delay. He
said several people several of them Goans had been on the receiving end during
the Covid period. Dias said the manner in which flights were cancelled either
at London or Delhi was not good. He said “People have been left stranded in
Delhi and Mumbai after landing from London in January. People have to be tested
and if the flight is cancelled, they have to do it all over again. My
contention is that when it is any other destination, it is not a problem but
when it is Goa, they cancel despite having passengers.” Timothy
Colasco from Par Avio said a lot of passengers had experienced problems. He
said “A lot of guys flying from UK had horrible experiences in Delhi. There
would be last minute changes in standard operating procedures. Due to the tests
that have to be conducted many of them miss their flights. Many miss their connecting
flights. Even if they have cleared their test, they will end up missing their
flight. Many of them have to go in for a mandatory quarantine for which they
have to pay”. He said he know of a person flying in from London on business
class and who had a connecting flight at 3 o clock being made to stand in line
till 11 the next morning and then getting cleared at 4.30. The airline in this
case Vistara provided him with a free ticket and he was able to go. He revealed
that Air India, Vistara, Virgin and British Airways were operating in a bubble
between the UK and India but other airlines like Sri lankan airlines on which
he had a ticket gave him his ticket on payment but then a few days prior to the
day of departure informed him that the flight had been cancelled. They promised
a refund but he has still not received it. Several airlines he said were
playing this game of showing schedules on their website and were accepting
bookings but would inform the paying customer of a delay or a cancellation and then
take time to return the fare. Sylvester
Franco who is based in Kuwait but whose wife was on the flight from Dubai to
Goa said it was a miserable experience and he hoped no one would ever go
through what she went through. He was unable to provide more information
because he was at work in Kuwait city. One can only
hope this does not become to norm in a Covid-19 world.