An Indian student in the USA was left in a bind after her luggage went missing on an Air India flight. With a wedding to attend the following day, Pooja Kathail's predicament highlights a growing concern over the reliability of baggage handling and customer service within the airline industry.
Kathail, a PhD student in Computational Biology at UC Berkeley, faced a major setback during her journey from San Francisco to Bengaluru with Air India when she claimed the airline did not even load her luggage on the plane.
The situation worsened as she struggled to reach Air India's customer service. After multiple attempts, she finally received a response from the airline, but not before her tweet had gained significant traction online.
Kathail took to X to express her frustration, revealing that her suitcase was not loaded onto the plane. "Took a direct flight San Francisco->Bengaluru yesterday and Air India never loaded my suitcase on the plane. It’s been 36 hours, and still no delivery estimate. And it took ~40 tries to get them to even pick up the phone. Going to a wedding tomorrow and don’t have any clothes,” she tweeted.
Air India responded with an apology and a request for more details to expedite the resolution. “Dear Ms. Kathail, we truly sorry for the delay and regret the inconvenience caused. Please DM us your PNR, PIR copy and bag tag for us to check with our airport/baggage team and get back to you with an update,” the airline tweeted.
Dear Ms. Kathail, we truly sorry for the delay and regret the inconvenience caused. Please DM us your PNR, PIR copy and bag tag for us to check with our airport/baggage team and get back to you with an update.— Air India (@airindia) July 8, 2024
Social media users joined in the conversation highlighting similar predicaments they faced.
“Going in Air India is a waste of time and money. Customer service is poor, the planes are quite old. Better to avoid for the next 3 to 4 years until the Tatas clean up the mess,” one user wrote.
“This seems to be an everyday thing now. Family members flew SFO - BLR last week, same story. Bags came after days after many continuous follow up. People book AI due to direct flight but now it’s becoming a nuisance that is not worth the advantage of direct flight,” wrote another.
“Air India is facing a lot of flak these days... Missing luggage on a direct flight is heights,” commented a third.
A fourth wrote: “AI-176 on July 1st and 2nd also had missed bags. They delivered bags after 72 hours. I’m surprised July 5th also facing same issue.”
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