So a very, very long time ago, I wrote about my frustrating experience with the RGN tickets. The article was here. It was my first post of any value, in fact. Of course, I filed with the Canadian Transport Authority, as I wasn’t about to let Jet Airways get away with this. Much time has elapsed. In April, we (me and the CTA) attempted to engage Jet Airways in a mediation session, which they summarily refused, stating that all previous correspondence is sufficiently indicative of their position, and I should go away and engage in copulation with a dead goat. Well, they didn’t quite write that, but that’s how I read it in my irritated state of mind. So we proceeded to formal adjudication, which, I was happy to learn on July 23, was resolved in my favour. Blacklocks, a Canadian publication dealing with federal government affairs, interviewed me and profiled my case in their weekly paper. Joy was mine… or so I thought. I would be loath to partake in stereotypical depictions of anyone, but I was about to find out that dealing with an Indian airline was rather similar to dealing with Indian bureaucracy in general: they took documents at literal value.
The ruling stated that Jet must issue tickets valid for one year for the identical itinerary. My original travel date was January 4, 2013, and the routing was RGN-KUL in economy, KUL-SIN in business, overnight in SIN, SIN-LHR in first, overnight in LHR, LHR-YUL in business. I disliked the overnights (I wanted them originally, but since then, we visited both LHR and SIN, so there was no reason for us to do overnights there anymore). So I asked for a reroute, and obviously the dates were no good anymore, so I asked for a change of dates.
Not only was I denied, but on the compliance date, August 23, I received e-tickets by email that were for January 4, 2014 with exactly the same flight segments. I was somewhat incredulous, since I told Jet to issue my tickets for April, 2014 – the January dates were nonsensical because they didn’t even fall on a weekend. They were literally just 365 days from the original ones. Jet’s answer was, the CTA said 1 year – here’s the 1 year, and you can change them anytime you wish, but they will reprice at $15,000 per ticket.
Fortunately, the CTA agreed that this was downright idiotic. Some behind-the-scenes wrangling happened, and suddenly, I received brand new e-tickets from Jet: RGN-SIN in business with an immediate connection to SIN-LHR in first, with a 10-hour layover and an onwards connection to Montreal. Not only did they backpedal on the dates, but they fixed my connections so that I can actually fly home in a single swoop.
The last laugh is mine. The poor souls that got screwed by Swiss are still fighting their tickets… I wish them luck, looks like that fight will be a lot more difficult than my Jet Airways one was.
Kyo-kaiseki and Krug… here we come.
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