My family, friends and I had recently gotten to Srinagar airport for our flight to Mumbai on the stroke of 45 minutes prior to departure, and apparently the counter had closed. Although we explained that technically we were just on time to check in, the people at the GoAir counter said that they couldn’t do much in this case if the counters had been declared closed.
However, a gentleman named Mr. Aamer who was in charge of ground operations of GoAir Srinagar, took it upon himself to ensure that the inconvenience was minimized. He found the immediate next flight and instructed ground staff to issue any boarding passes in lieu of passengers who had not shown up after the deadline. This allowed me to make it home in time for a morning meeting the next day. Mr. Aamer personally worked to split the PNR, allowing me to fly separately. The ground staff swung into action to check in my luggage before the deadline of the next flight.
On learning that there were no more seats or flights on that day for the other passengers on our PNR, Mr. Aamer called up a nearby hotel and helped negotiate a very reasonable room tariff for the night. He took our family members to the hotel in his own car and got them checked-in. He had arranged to send my family on the first flight next morning since there were un-booked seats. He sent his own car to the hotel at 5.30am the next morning to pick them up again and take them to the airport.
He personally ensured that my family and friends had boarded, and took care of checking in their luggage.
I’ve flown in and out of airports around the world, but I’m yet to see such exceptional service being delivered to passengers, considering that we had economy class tickets. Mr. Aamer worked like a dream and his GoAir ground staff team really worked to make it happen. If this is the culture of GoAir, I would love to continue flying that airline.
What’s more, even a lady from the neighboring IndiGo Airlines office(whose name I do not recall) called up hotels on that evening, trying to find rooms for my family, who were GoAir passengers - another shining example of great and selfless service.
So, maybe it’s more than just about any single airline. Maybe it’s about the wonderful people of Srinagar. Maybe it’s about’Kashmiriyat’.