BRITISH AIRWAYS PLC vs SANTOSH KUMARI

THESE two revision petitions (R.P.No.4090/2007 and R.P.No.4158/2007) have been filed by British Airways Plc.(hereinafter referred to as the ''Petitioner'') and M/s Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the ''GSA'') respectively being aggrieved by the order of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, UT Chandigarh (hereinafter referred to as the ''State Commission'') in Appeal No.26/2007 decided in favour of Santosh Kumari and another, Respondents herein who were original complainants before the District Forum. Since, the facts and issues involved in these cases are similar, these revision petitions are being disposed of through a single order by taking the facts from R.P.No.4090/2007.

THE facts of the case are that the Respondents/Complainants had purchased two air tickets of British Airways through Janta Travels Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the ''Respondent No.3'') for undertaking a journey from Delhi to Atlanta, USA and return. THE tickets were valid for six months from the date of outward journey i.e. 22.03.2003 and return on 18.09.2002 with an assurance of an OK status with connecting flights on the same day at London. A print -out of the computerized confirmation for the to and fro journey was issued to the Respondents on 26.02.2002 with a British Airways Confirmation Number BA/R6E7G1. After reaching Atlanta Respondents contacted office of Petitioner in USA on phone in April, 2002 who again confirmed the OK status of their return journey from Atlanta (USA) to Delhi via London on 18.09.2002 with reference to the computerized confirmation earlier issued. However, just before their scheduled departure on 18.09.2002, the USA Office of Petitioner informed Respondents that the confirmation of their tickets has been cancelled and the PNR Number on tickets was thus invalid because of non -adherence of a minimum 3'' hours'' connecting time between arrival at Gatwick and departure from Heathrow Airport, both being London Airport Terminals. Petitioner also refused to issue fresh tickets to Respondents for the return journey. THEreafter, several requests were made by Respondents to Petitioner''s Counter at Atlanta Airport, USA who stated that their Agent in India should be approached for the purpose. After a great deal of physical stress, mental agony and additional expenditure, Respondents had no option but to buy fresh tickets from another Airlines costing equivalent to Indian Rupees 97,344/ - for their return journey to India. On their return to India, Respondents took up the matter with Petitioner and asked for refund of the cancelled tickets and compensation. Petitioner vide its letter dated 22.04.2003 while admitting cancellation of the tickets expressed its inability to give them any compensation and suggested that the matter be taken up with the Respondent No.3 (Janta Travels Pvt. Ltd.) who should not have booked Respondent on a flight where the connecting time between two flights is less than 3'' hrs. for the same day. Aggrieved by these actions, Respondents filed a complaint on grounds of deficiency in service before the District Forum and requested that Petitioner along with Respondent No.3 (Janta Travels Pvt. Ltd.) be directed to pay Respondents a sum of Rs.42,800/ - being the cost of the return tickets, Rs.20,000/ - for mental agony and harassment caused to them and Rs.5,000/ - as litigation costs along with interest @ 18% per annum.

PETITIONER denied the above allegations and stated that the tickets were confirmed only for the onward journey from Delhi to Atlanta(USA) and the tickets from Atlanta to Delhi were open and confirmation of the same was declined on account of the fact that undercutting of the minimum connecting time between two flights being one of the conditions of the special fare charged for the tickets was not fulfilled in the instant case. It was under these circumstances, Respondents were advised to take up the matter with their travel agent Respondent No.3(Janta Travels Pvt. Ltd.) who should not have booked Respondents on a flight where the connecting time between two flights is less than 3'' hrs. for the same day. PETITIONER further stated that the Respondents are not entitled for refund as Respondents'' tickets were booked by PETITIONER and confirmed for 22.09.2002 but due to ''no show'' by the Respondents at Atlanta Airport on the said date the same became invalid. There was therefore, no deficiency on the part of PETITIONER.

THE District Forum after hearing the parties allowed the complaint only in respect of Respondent No.3 (Janta Travels Pvt. Ltd.) on the grounds that there was no privity of contract between Petitioner/Airways and Respondents/Complainants and since the tickets had been purchased from Respondent No.3 (Janta Travels Pvt. Ltd.) and therefore, directed Respondent No.3 to pay Rs.97,344/ - being air fare from Atlanta, USA to Delhi by Air France and compensation of Rs.20,000/ - for mental agony and harassment, Rs.1,100/ - were awarded as litigation costs. Aggrieved by this order, Respondent No.3 (Janta Travels Pvt. Ltd.) filed an appeal before the State Commission and impleaded not only the Respondents/Complainants but Petitioner(British Airways Pvt. Ltd.) and GSA(Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd.) of Petitioner on the grounds that Respondent No.3 was not the General Sales Agent(GSA) of Petitioner but GSA of Air India while on the other hand it is the GSA (Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd.) who was GSA of Petitioner and therefore, there is no deficiency in service on the part of Respondent No.3 who had given confirmed tickets as per the computerized version of Petitioner''s Central Office at London. State Commission set aside the order of the District Forum and decided the appeal in favour of Respondent No.3. However, since Respondents/Complainants had not filed an appeal against the finding of the District Forum which exonerated the Petitioner and its GSA(Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd.), State Commission did not give any finding against them.

THEREAFTER, Respondents/Complainants filed a separate appeal (Appeal No.26/2007) before the State Commission requesting for modification of the order of the District Forum and to hold both Petitioner/Airways and its GSA (Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd.) jointly and severally responsible for deficiency in service. The State Commission after hearing both the parties allowed the appeal and held both Petitioner(British Airways Pvt. Ltd.) and GSA(Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd.) guilty of deficiency in service and directed them to pay to the Respondents jointly and severally, Rs.97,344/ - as air fare from Atlanta to Delhi by Air France, Rs.20,000/ - as compensation for mental agony and harassment and Rs.1,100/ - as litigation costs with 30 days failing which the entire amount would carry interest @ 9% per annum from the date of order till realization. The relevant part of the order of the State Commission is reproduced: "It is an admitted fact that Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd. '' respondent No.3 is general sales agent of British Airways. A perusal of letter Ex.C -F which is dated 22.04.2003 which had been issued by British Airways to Bikram Tirath respondent shows that the tickets were issued by their GSA, Chandigarh office. The Delhi -London -Atlanta sector was issued with OK status and Atlanta -London -Delhi sector was also issued tickets with OK status. The appellants had contacted Atlanta office for second time and came to know that their inbound journey scheduled for 18.09.2002 had been cancelled as it was not meeting minimum connecting time. The plea of respondent No.1 that booking was made available to appellants for 22.09.2002 cannot be believed. At the cost of repetition we may say that there is no documentary evidence to prove that. Confirmed seats were offered for 22.09.2002 by respondent No.1. If they had been offered confirmed seats for 22.09.2002, then there was no point for them to stay further in USA and then to spend Rs.97,344/ - for buying fresh tickets of Air France. The further case of the respondent No.1 - British Airways is that sticker showing OK status ex Atlanta -London -Delhi for 18.09.2002 was no authorized sticker as sticker did not show the name of IATA agent and its code number who had pasted the sticker on the tickets. However, computerized statement taken from the Central Computer, London of the British Airways having No.BA/R6E7GI relates to the status of tickets of appellants. This very number R6E7GI is mentioned on the tickets of appellants. Hence, this PNR relates to British Airways. It shows OK status. Therefore, Janta Travels even if it was not agent or sub agent of British Airways, had not committed any deficiency because computer of British Airways showed status of tickets to be OK. If the time between two connecting flights was less than 3 hours, then computer should not have issued confirmed tickets for inward journey on 18.09.2002. British Airways should not have rejected the tickets on the plea that the time gap between two connecting flights was less once it had issued confirmed tickets. Thus, certainly there was deficiency in service on the part of British Airways and its agent respondent No.3 Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd. As the appellants had suffered mental tension and agony besides they suffered loss of about Rs.one lac, thus, we hold respondents No.1 and 3 to be guilty of deficiency in service."

THE State Commission also rejected the plea of the Petitioner that District Forum, UT Chandigarh did not have the territorial jurisdiction to decide the complaint by ruling that since part of cause of action had arisen in Chandigarh from where Respondents had purchased air tickets, the District forum did have territorial jurisdiction to try the complaint. Hence, the present revision petition.

COUNSEL for Petitioner(British Airways), COUNSEL for GSA (Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd.) and authorized representative on behalf of Respondents/Complainants were present. COUNSEL for Petitioner contended that the photocopy of the itinerary with the British Airways Computer Reference Number produced in evidence by the Respondents as proof that they had an OK status for both the ongoing and return journey was actually not done by British Airways Central Office. Since the network of the British Airways system can be accessed through other networks (like internet) and by authorized IATA ticketing agents, it is these agents who do the booking and if there is any irregularity or otherwise, British Airways within a reasonable time gives an alert against such bookings. It is upto the agent to remove the irregularity failing which Petitioner/Airways cancelled the tickets. In the instant case, the entries were made by employees of Respondent No.3(Janta Travels Pvt. Ltd.) through ''Amadeus making and remaking bookings'' and when Petitioner/Airways noted that the bookings made for the reverse directions were not permissible as they undercut the minimum connecting time of 3'' hrs., an alert was issued and the Respondent No.3(Janta Travels Pvt. Ltd.) was advised to correct the bookings failing which the Petitioner/Airways will cancel the same without further notice. Since, Respondent No.3 did not correct the bookings, as early as on 04.03.2002 vide entry No.26, the Petitioner/Airways cancelled the booking. Therefore, the Respondents'' contention that Petitioner/Airways informed them in April, 2002 that their return tickets were ''OK'' was not correct. In fact, they were advised to rebook the reservations because it was not possible to give the necessary connections in London for the above stated reasons. Even thereafter Petitioner/Airways with a view to help the Respondents and because the validity of their tickets was expiring on 22.09.2003 rebooked their return travel for 22/24.09.2003 ex Atlanta and ex London to Heathrow but it was the Respondents who did not avail of these tickets. COUNSEL for Petitioner further contended that the stickers on the tickets were unauthorisedly pasted by Respondent No.3 since Petitioner/Airways had never granted the bookings for the return journey and the print -outs were given by Respondent No.3(Janta Travels Pvt. Ltd.) from its own system. The Petitioner therefore, cannot be held responsible for any deficiency in service. The Authorized representative on behalf of the Respondents/Complainants on the other hand essentially reiterated the stand taken by the Respondents before the Fora below and urged that considering all the facts of the case and that the order of the State Commission being a well -reasoned order, the same may be upheld.

WE have considered the oral submissions made and have gone through the evidence on record. WE note that the contentions raised by learned Counsel for Petitioner had been considered by the State Commission as reproduced in Para 2 at page 8 of this order. Briefly, stated the State Commission had reached a finding that even though the authorized sticker may not have shown the name of the IATA Agent and its code number, however, since the computerized statement was taken from the Central Office of the Petitioner/Airways having Computerized PNR No.BA/R6E7GI relating to the OK status of the tickets and this very number is mentioned on the tickets of the Respondents, the PNR was obviously given by Petitioner/Airways and it was the computer of Petitioner/Airways which had shown the status of the tickets to be OK. The State Commission had reached this finding after carefully scrutinizing the documents on record and hearing the parties at length. In our revisional jurisdiction, we see no reasons to interfere with these findings of fact. Even otherwise, Counsel for Petitioner has not been able to put forward any convincing or plausible explanation to challenge the above findings of the State Commission nor has it been able to show us any evidence that they had issued an advisory in March, 2002 itself to their GSA to cancel the return tickets because of non -availability of minimum connecting time. WE are also unable to accept the contention of the Petitioner that it subsequently offered another ticket to Respondents for 22/24.09.2002 which had to be cancelled because Respondents did not avail of it because if the Respondents had been informed prior to their departure on 18.09.2002 that they would be accommodated only 4 days later in another flight, there is no reason for them to have declined this offer. Therefore, Respondents'' contention that no such offer was made to them by Petitioner/Airways appears to be more plausible. WE also agree that the District Forum UT Chandigarh had the jurisdiction to try the complaint because the instant cause of action had arisen at Chandigarh since Respondents had purchased tickets of Petitioner/Airways through Janta Travels Pvt.Ltd./Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd. which had their offices in Chandigarh. In view of the above facts, we find no infirmity in the impugned order of the State Commission and uphold the same. Both revision petitions are therefore dismissed. Petitioner (British Airways Plc.) and its GSA (Nijhawan Travels Services Pvt. Ltd.) are directed to jointly and severally pay the Respondents, Rs.97,344/ - as air fare from Atlanta to Delhi by Air France, Rs.20,000/ - as compensation for mental agony and harassment and Rs.1,100/ - as litigation costs within 30 days failing which the entire amount would carry interest @ 9% per annum from the date of order till realization.