Supreme Court fines airline for baggage loss

The Supreme Court (SC) upheld on Tuesday a Rs9.3-lakh penalty imposed on Royal Jordanian Airlines (RJA) for misplacing a couple’s baggage.

Dismissing RJA’s appeal against the penalty ordered by Orissa State Consumer Commission and National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, SC expressed concern that poor passengers were facing unnecessary harassment at the hands of negligent airlines.

“They [the couple] were forced to spend 15 days without clothes. How do you expect them to lodge a complaint immediately? They would first obviously go to the shop to purchase clothes,” an anguished bench of justices Markandey Katju and TS Thakur said.

When RJA lawyer A Sundaram sought to find fault with the couple saying it didn’t lodge complaint immediately, the judges said, “Aap logo ne to passengers ko pareshan kar rakha hai [you airlines are harassing passengers]. These days, there are a lot of complaints from passengers about missing baggage.”

They said airlines must be held “accountable for such losses”.The couple allegedly booked two tickets on an RJA flight from Kolkata to London’s Heathrow Airport via Amman on May 17, 2001.

However, their baggage was found stolen in Amman.

In April, SC had fined the same airline Rs5 lakh for refusing to fly a Punjab resident.