We happen to write to jet airways for payment of compensation as per consumer court ruling, but to our surprise this is what the CEO of jet airways has to say to get away from this liability. This is the attitude of this airlines towards its loyal customers.
Kindly refer to your letter dated December 26, 2006 (which was received by us on January 3, 2007 addressed to our Chairman, Mr.Naresh Goyal and is further to our interim response dated January 3, 2007. I take the liberty of responding to you on his behalf.
At Jet Airways, the customer is the focus of all our efforts. Hence, your feedback about a decline in the of our ground services at Delhi Airport as experienced by you during your travel on flight 9W 726 of December 23, 2006 from Delhi to Chennai, was unfortunate.
While it is not my intention to give any excuses, please allow me to mention here that the fog conditions in the early morning at Delhi on December 23, 2006, disrupted our flight schedules and this had a cascading effect on our flights operating to and from Delhi.
May I also make a mention here that delays caused by fog and the resultant Air Traffic Congestion are creeping in nature and it is difficult to estimate when the flight would be given permission to land/take-off. In such cases, it is our endeavour to provide advance information to passengers, wherever possible.
On the said day we were anticipating an improvement in the weather conditions in the evening therefore did not expect a disruption in the evening schedules for a flight in or of Delhi.
May I explain the routing pattern that was changed thereafter due to unexpected deterioration in weather which eventually resulted in the delay of the flight.
The incoming aircraft that operates 9W 708 (Udaipur-Delhi) was to continue to operate flight 9W 726 (Delhi-Chennai) of December 23, 2006 was delayed due to heavy Air Traffic Congestion at Delhi and diverted to Jaipur at 1935 as a result of bad weather.
To avoid further delay, attempts made to operate the Delhi-Chennai sector i.e 9W 726 flight with another aircraft which was to arrive from Jodhpur (9W3312). This flight was also delayed awaiting Air Traffic Control (ATC) clearance and tookoff at 2113hrs, subsequently delaying flight 9W 726 from Delhi to Chennaideparture at 2200hrs.
The entire sequence of altere schedules as explained earlier resulted in disruptions of the Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) of pilots (which restricts the flying hours for safety reasons). As a result a new set of Cockpit crew had to arranged to operate the flight which took sometime. Thereafter the flight was awaiting ATC clearance till 2255 hours, and finally departed Delhi at 2310
hours.
Mr. Irakam, you would appreciate that the situation, to a very large extent, was circumstantial and we did everything that was necessary and possible to continue our scheduled flight. Our staff struggling to cope with the current constraints of airport infrastructure and mounting passenger traffic now faces compoundedchallenges caused on account of bad weather conditions, over which it has no control. Please
do understand that our staff had absolutely no intention of inconveniencing our esteemed passengers.
Mr. Irakam, it would be relevant to mention here, with regard to the matter of compensation, no directiveshave been issued till date.
Wolfgang Prock - Schauer
Chief Executive Officer