Pathetic, Hopeless, Inhumane. Blunt or Indifferent, not sure how to describe our Jet Ariways experience. I would leave it to the readers to interpret. After a long time I was flying Jet airways from Mumbai to London and back. Me and my team have vowed never to fly Jet Airways as all they care is about making money somehow.
First about our return flight – our Ordeal started with catching a taxi from London City to Heathrow last Friday for the evening flight.
We started off at 4:30 pm for a 9:05 pm flight(for what is supposed to be a 45 min ride or a max 1.5 hours in traffic). However with the massive jam on the only road leading to the airport we barely managed to reach their a little before 8:00 pm – still more than an hour before the flight schedule. However we were denied check-in by the ground staff(whom we later found to be outsourced) and were asked to meet the manager at a different booth. The manager crossed us(and considering that the only activity in that area at that time was check-in only for Jet Airways passengers and our Indian faces would easily make him understand that we are trying to catch the Jet flight) and with a cold shoulder went out of scene. We were told that he was attending the flight and hence would come in some time to attend us but never appeared until the sometime after the flight left.
The ground staff seemed totally indifferent to the fact that there was a collective issue of unimaginable traffic on the route to the airport and that there were at least 15 passengers trying to request them to make some exceptional arrangements in view of the situation beyond control of the travellers. The ground staff(and of course being outsourced by Jet – a company called Cobalt - and hence having no stakes in customer relationship or the repute of the airways) acted arrogantly and bluntly verbally as well as at times moving inside a room to make themselves unavailable or even by calling the security against one of the harassed passenger’s taking a snap of the situation.
Until the flight left the manager did not appear(why was he hiding?) neither was there an indication as to whether we would be accommodated in the same or an alternate flight or at least a denial, keeping us guessing all the while. Due to this, the stranded passengers even missed a chance to book an alternate airways leaving for India during similar time.
Finally they charged an equivalent of another ticket to put us up on the flight for the next morning, leaving no choice but to spend the night hours in between at the airport. Looked like they had overbooked the evening flight and wanted to make money by shifting passengers on the morning flight while charging them a huge amount for such a shift. Door to door from the London Hotel to Mumbai airport it was a 40 hour ordeal.
In the flight they did not have a Jain meal though this was confirmed earlier by their call centre. The saving grace was that on insistence of having the facts in writing, Abhishek the attendant arranged some Jain food and the flight supervisor Vikram Jayakar assured that he will report about the ground staff’s behavior to the management as they would not like to loose their customers.
Other issues about Jet Airways
The flight from Mumbai to London started off at least an hour late – with no food/refreshments offered until a few hours of taking off.
The food served in flight is wanting – firstly the timings are not great and then the food served is insufficient for a 8 hour long flight.
On our way back from London to Mumbai – they announced that they did not have any disembark cards and one would need to collect it from the Mumbai airport(wastage of time of arrival)
Also on the return flight they announced that the baggage would be on berth 7 while it was actually on berth 13th, leading customers to find for themselves.
Most of their seat pouches are broken
Looks like there is nothing known as customer service that has remained with Jet Airways, which was once known for customer delight.