New Delhi, Feb 22 Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Saturday expressed his frustration over Air India’s poor service after he was allotted a broken seat on a flight from Bhopal to Delhi.
Chouhan criticised the national carrier on X social media platform, saying that such negligence is unfair to passengers who pay full fare for their tickets.
"I had booked a ticket on Air India flight AI436 from Bhopal to Delhi and was allotted seat number 8C. When I sat down, the seat was broken and sunken in," he wrote.
The Union Minister questioned the airline staff about why a defective seat was allotted in the first place.
In response, they reportedly admitted that the management had already been informed about the faulty seat and that it should not have been sold.
Chouhan further revealed that there were multiple such defective seats on the flight.
"I believed that after Tata took over, Air India's service would have improved, but I was mistaken," the minister wrote.
He added that charging passengers the full fare and making them sit on broken and uncomfortable seats is unethical.
"Isn't this cheating the passengers?", Chouhan mentioned.
He added that fellow passengers, seeing his discomfort, offered him a better seat, but he chose not to inconvenience someone else. Instead, he decided to continue the journey on the faulty seat.
Chouhan also called out the airline, asking, "Will Air India management take steps to ensure that no other passenger suffers like this in the future, or will they continue to take advantage of travelers' urgency to reach their destination?"
Air India was acquired by the Tata Group in 2022, and since then, the company has been working on revamping the airline.
In December 2023, Air India placed an order for 100 additional aircraft from Airbus, including 10 wide-body A350 and 90 narrow-body A321neo and A320 aircraft.
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