On 09 July booked KPN travels by their Chennai to Ernakulam Non AC 2 x2 bus leaving Chennai Omni Bus Terminus at Koyambedu at 1915 PM for my wife and her colleague. The bus was scheduled to reach Ernakulam at 8 AM as perr their website.
Here is a summary of what happened.
1 Bus left almost on time at 1915 (the first and last thing which was good about the whole journey)
2 Around 2100 near a highway toll gate (not a remote location - keep in mind) , one tyre got punctured. Keeping in mind that the operator is KPN Travels who as per their website " Offers excellent service with its well-maintained coaches and courteous staff", we thought nothing to worry! At 1915 this was one of the first departures of KPN going south with lots and lots more buses to follow and after all it was just a punctured tyre.
3 Believe it or not, to replace the punctured tyre, it took all of 3 1/2 hours (stepney apparently not usable. spare tyre from another bus of the wrong size etc etc was what the poor passengers could gather). and the bus finally started moving at 1230!!!
4 At Coimbatore, the passengers on the badly delayed bus were asked to shift to another bus since they said the first bus does not have a Kerala permit. The changed\ happened quickly though (but bus was already delayed 4 hours).
5 At 11 AM, around 80 Km from the destination, the crew of the new bus informs they have run out of diesel ! How wonderful - after all their website also says ". 38 years in public transport is indeed a great accomplishment by our company". But 38 years is not enough for them to know the amount of required diesel to run from Coimbatire to Ernakulam - it is as if it is their first trip on their first route in Antarctica!!!!
6 This happened around 16 km from Trichur. Most of the remaining passengers were till Trichur and only 4 (including my wife and her friend) were going till Ernakulam. All of them caught a private local bus passing by, got to Trichur and the four Ernakulam passengers took another government bus to Ernakulam, (all this at their own expense) finally reaching around 2 PM, more than 18 hours after they left Chennai.
I called customer service at Salem to complain. They are world beaters. No apology - instead they kindly offered to call up the driver to find out "why the bus ran out of diesel"and call me back. I told them not to bother - their mechanical brilliance was not my concern.
If you are running Non AC buses only for luggage then my humble request is don’t sell seats to passengers!! Do respect peoples time and make an effort to stick to timings. And most important when you slip up, admit your mistake instead of having dumb customer service experts who don’t know what to speak - I am sure Salem has no shortage of trained manpower who have enough of that precious commodity called common sense!!!
Shame on you - KPN!!!