Singapore Airlines (SIA) has been ordered to pay two of its passengers 200,000 rupees (S$3,300) plus other costs after they filed a complaint concerning recliner seats on a flight from Hyderabad to Singapore.
Mr Ravi Gupta, director-general of police in India’s Telangana state, was travelling with his wife on May 23, 2023, in business class, but found that their seats could not recline electronically.
Mr Gupta said the malfunction caused them inconvenience, and he had to stay awake throughout the almost four-hour flight despite paying 133,500 rupees in total for the plane tickets.
He made a complaint to the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission-III in Hyderabad, which ordered SIA to return 97,500 rupees to the couple, along with an interest charge of 12 per cent from the date of complaint.
The airline would also have to bear the cost of 100,000 rupees for the duo’s “mental agony and physical suffering”, along with paying 10,000 rupees to cover the cost for the complaint.
The total sum amounts to around $3,580.
The airline had offered the couple 10,000 KrisFlyer miles each, but they declined the offer.
They had purchased Business Z class seats. The Z class fare is flexible and refundable.
The seats in business class are supposed to be able to recline automatically via electronic buttons.
In their complaint, the couple claimed that they felt as if they were economy-class passengers, except they had extra legroom, reported the Deccan Chronicle.
In a statement to The Straits Times, SIA acknowledged the decision of the commission.
“SIA can confirm that while the automatic recline function on Mr and Mrs Gupta’s seats was faulty, the manual recline function was working. We apologise to Mr and Mrs Gupta for the inconvenience caused by this mechanical issue,” said the airline.
“As it was a full flight, SIA staff unfortunately could not reseat them elsewhere in the business class cabin. During the flight, our crew proactively checked in on these customers regularly and offered to manually recline the seat when needed,” added SIA.
The airline did not answer queries on whether it would pay the couple as ordered or appeal against the decision.
Meanwhile, Indigo Airlines was ordered to pay a passenger 30,000 rupees for not informing him earlier of his flight cancellation.
The man’s flight was scheduled for 10.05am, while the airline sent the message at 4.31am the same day, reported The New Indian Express.
He saw the message only at 8am on his way to the airport.
The airline said the flight was cancelled due to “operational constraints that were beyond their control”, but was not able to produce evidence of this later on.
Correction note: In an earlier version of the story, it was reported that Mr Ravi Gupta and his wife were travelling from Hyderabad to Australia and took a 14-hour flight. Singapore Airlines has since clarified that the flight was from Hyderabad to Singapore and took four hours instead.
We also previously said that Z class fares are non-refundable. This is incorrect. They are flexible and refundable. We are sorry for the error.
