Jet Airways attributed Monday's grounding of planes to its failure to pay rent for the aircraft
As cash-strapped Jet Airways struggles to run its operations, passengers hit by its decision to ground aircraft have begun venting their ire on social media and flooding its customer support with calls.
Flyers are furious over flight cancellations and have accused Jet of delaying them refunds. The beleaguered carrier on Monday grounded four more aircraft, taking the number of planes tied down to 40. It has 119 planes in its fleet.
"Two of my flights got cancelled 3 days before when other ticket prices are at skies. Nobody was there to attend my call for an hour. Can this issues be resolved," wrote Deep Joshi on Twitter.
Another passenger, Manju Lamba, posted on Twitter that she struggled for four hours to connect to the customer care. She said she was then put on hold for 24 minutes.
Jet Airways attributed Monday's grounding of planes to its failure to pay rent for the aircraft. "The company is also making all efforts to minimise disruption to its network and is proactively informing and re-accommodating its affected guests," it said in a statement.
After it cancelled few flights to Abu Dhabi on Sunday, social media was abuzz with posts that it was done at the last moment and no information was given about rescheduled travel or refund.
As passengers kept flooding its customer care numbers, Jet Airways tweeted, "We've been experiencing very high call volumes which have led to longer wait times than usual. Please send us your complete booking details, email ID and phone no. via Direct Message so we can look into it."
Jet apart, budget carrier SpiceJet has also seen several cancellations over the grounding of Boeing 737 Max aircraft following two accidents killing nearly 300 passengers in the last five months.
Shortage of aircraft has sent airfares soaring. Travel portal Yatra said at least 50 planes are out of action or grounded over various reasons."The demand is going to be robust over the next few months because of school holidays and surging leisure travel. The airfares were at least 15 per cent higher this year compared to last year, and owing to the current situation."
Meanwhile, Jet on Monday defaulted on payment to its debenture-holders – the third default since January. In a letter to the 16,000 staff, chairman Naresh Goyal assured the employees, who are upset over delays in salaries, of a resolution in the immediate possible time, but said more time is needed to clinch a bailout.
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