In this modern world, with large numbers of people traveling from place to place, the convenience of modern airline travel can help people make such travel with speed and convenience. However, what happens in the cases when such travel is no longer convenient, especially when one has paid for such a service, and the expectation is that service quality should be high ? It can be very unsettling. Imagine traveling from one country to another country, especially when there is no direct flight between the 2 locations. There is a need to take a connecting flight. The occassions could be numerous – attending a business conference, going to visit somebody who is in poor health, going for a family function. If one gets delayed for some reason that does not seem justifiable, then it is hard to understand the reason. Consider the case of these travelers who had to complete the last leg of their journey by car because the connecting flight was late, and for which the airline was unable to come up with a valid reason (link to article):
Here to attend a family function at Chandigarh and Amritsar, Dhillon and her husband, Manjinder got two tickets booked from London to Delhi for October 12, 2006 and further tickets were booked in connecting flight from Delhi to Chandigarh. As per the schedule, they reached Heathrow Airport but allegedly ground staff told them that the flight was delayed.
They stayed overnight and reached Delhi on October 14, 2006. The ordeal continued when they arrived at Delhi airport as, allegedly, the ground staff here informed them that the connecting flight from Delhi to Chandigarh was after 12 hours. As the couple had to reach Chandigarh at the earliest, they refused to wait for such a long period. Allegedly Dhillons were sent to Chandigarh by a shared taxi by the ground staff.
This is not an uncommon occurrence to happen, after all the world over have to suffer due to flights getting delayed; and in many cases, this could be due to technical snags or similar issues that can cause legitimate delays, although passengers do get inconvenienced. However, in this case, the airline did not present any proof of technical problems or something similar, which could mean that the flight delay could have been for other reasons that were not of a technical nature. If true, such things need to be penalized.