Two business class passengers of a Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight recently filed a complaint after their experience onboard.
Mr Ravi Gupta, the director-general of police in India’s Telangana state, and his wife had issues with their recliner seats.
They were en route from Hyderabad to Singapore in a four-hour flight.
SIA has since been ordered to compensate the couple with S$3,580 (200,000 rupees), reported The Straits Times (ST).
According to India Today, the incident occurred on 23 May 2023.
Mr Ravi Gupta and his wife, Anjali Gupta, were on an SIA flight from Hyderabad to Singapore when they realised they could not automatically recline their seats.
As a result, the couple had to stay awake for the whole flight — which they paid about 133,500 rupees for.
Mr Ravi Gupta then filed a complaint to the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission-III in Hyderabad.
The complaint stated that the seats were meant to automatically recline. However, the electric controls had failed during the flight.
ST reported that SIA was ordered to pay 97,500 rupees to the couple, plus an interest rate charge of 12% from the date of complaint.
For the couple’s mental and physical distress, they would have to pay an extra sum of 100,000 rupees.
SIA would also have to cover the cost of the complaint which amounted to 10,000 rupees.
In total, SIA would have to pay around S$3,580 to the pair.
The couple reportedly turned down the airline’s offer of 10,000 KrisFlyer miles each.
Mr Ravi Gupta and his wife had booked Business Z class seats with an electronic reclining function.
The couple alleged that they were treated as economy class passengers except for the extra legroom, reported Deccan Chronicle.
Source: Singapore Airlines. For Illustration Purposes Only
In response to the incident, SIA confirmed that the seats’ automatic recline function were faulty.
However, the manual recline function was working. The airlines apologised to the couple for the inconvenience caused by the mechanical issue.
They added that the staff could not reseat the couple as it was a full flight.
The crew had also offered to manually recline their seats when needed.
SIA did not say if it would pay the couple as ordered or appeal against it.
Also read: Couple allegedly dragged off AirAsia plane after flight was overbooked, airline compensates for trip
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Featured image adapted from Changi Airport on Facebook.
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