Indian Airlines Asked to Pay Rs75,000 for Lost Bags

Saturday, 20th July 2013 at 01:56am

State-owned Indian Airlines (later rebranded itself into Indian in 2005) may have merged with another state-owned carrier and dissolved its name after the merger but it didn't remove its liability to a man who lost his baggage during his flight from Delhi to Bangkok in 2006.

A Delhi-based organization has found the now-defunct airline liable for the lost baggage and ordered to pay the owner Rs.75,000 upfront.

The passenger was on an Indian Airlines' Delhi-Bangkok flight to attend a very important event. Alas, when he was about to claim his baggage upon his arrival in Bangkok airport, he couldn't find it and in a haste, proceeded to the wedding ceremony without bothering to contact the airline to report the loss.

The South West District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum argued that the state-owned failed to produce the baggage as the reason in its decision to order the airline to pay the passenger as a form of compensation.

The forum found the airline to have failed to deliver its service to its passenger, a clear violation of the aviation law of conveyance of passengers and goods.

The baggage was never returned to the rightful owner, Nisar Ahmed, since then.

The forum, which was presided by Narendra Kumar, came up with the amount to include a Rs.35,000 as compensation and litigation expenses on top of the Rs.40,000 as the actual cost of the lost items contained inside the baggage and the bag itself.

The incident happened in 2006 when Ahmed flew from Delhi to Bangkok for a wedding ceremony. He claimed that his baggage contained valuable items, worth Rs47,000, including his personal gifts to the soon-to-be-married couple.

The only mistake Mr. Ahmed made was that he failed to report the loss to the airline promptly. That was the argument Indian Airlines used earlier when it sought dismissal of the case. It took him nine hours to report the missing baggage to the airline office. Besides, the airline argued, he didn't declare the real value of the items inside the baggage when he boarded the plane.

The consumer forum, however, brushed aside airline's argument.

By: Pete Lee.