Indian-Canadian actor Lisa Ray has slammed Air India for denying a medical waiver for her ailing father despite providing a doctor’s letter. Sharing her ordeal on social media, she said she had to cancel her travel since her 92-year-old father was unwell. While some airlines and aggregators waive cancellation fees in view of medical reasons, an email response she shared appeared to show that Air India did not offer such waivers. The Tata-owned carrier said it is looking into the matter.
“Here we go again @airindia. My father is 92, unwell and I have to cancel travel due to his ailing condition. Submitted doctors’ letter and the waiver was denied? How is that possible? Where is the empathy from an airline that is claiming to care about passengers?” asked Ms Ray.
In response to the query, Air India asked Ms Ray to share her email address and wished a speedy recovery to her father.
“Dear Ms Ray, we empathize with your concern and wish your father a speedy recovery. Please help us with the email address from which you’ve written to us or the case ID (if any) via DM. We’ll look into it,” said Air India.
Ms Ray, who had starred in the 2005 Hindi movie Water, posted a reply from her travel agent saying no medical waiver was available. It the mail trail, Ms Ray had flagged her father’s hospitalisation and said that she had attached a medical certificate.
Her criticism follows a list of high-profile passengers who had slammed the airline over the past few months over various reasons.
Last November, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram had flagged a flight delay and accused its new management of incompetence. “I regret that there has been practically no improvement since the management changed hands from the government to the private sector,” he had said pointing to its takeover by the Tata Group.
A month earlier, actor Tillotama Shome had slammed the airline for not notifying the passengers about an 8.5-hour delay on a Mumbai-London flight. “Upon contacting AI, all they can say is sorry. Zero accountability and no solutions offered,” she had said.
In December, a Delhi-based journalist had flagged an 18-hour flight delay that left her stranded in Italy’s Milan. It was “nothing short of a nightmare”, she said, adding that the delay made her miss an important part of her sister’s wedding.
Ricky Kej, an Indian-American Grammy-winning composer, had publicly blasted Air India at least on two different occasions for downgrading him from business class and refusing to offer a refund. He had said he faced issues with the airline at least five times in the past and called it a “terrible airline”, but said he would keep giving feedback.
Air India had regretted the “inconvenience” caused to him and said it takes “feedback seriously”.
Leave a Reply