Kingfisher Airlines used to be the darling of the flying class, with all the glitz and glamour they rolled out in flying, even for those with cheap tickets. Heck, the flying public in India never had it so good, and everyone was clamoring for one of those cheap tickets, which they used towards flying very well.
Anyhow, after the airline shut down, a lot of employees never got paid, and a lot of the loans that they raised never got paid back. Eventually the airline was put up for sale. I’m sure everyone is tracking the news where Vijay Mallya left the country for UK, and now with the government tightening the nooze on him, he is starting to talk about paying back the loans. This is absolutely a land grabber act, where the guy said it was the company which failed, while taking no personal responsibility for the acts of the company he owned and promoted.
Leave aside the millions of miles which went uncashed by people, as miles are a property of the company which issues them. A lot of people who wanted to fly Kingfisher and had tickets booked, however, never got their refunds from the airline. What about these people? Will Kingfisher Airlines or their boss also pay up people whose tickets were never refunded?
What was your last experience with Kingfisher Airlines. Did you get your refund or you were left hanging by the airline?
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I never got my refund for a Mumbai – Chandigarh return flight that i had booked during Diwali. Have around 20 emails written to the customer care with the last follow ups showing that the email id do not exist anymore.
Unfortunately, i have a pending Jet Airways journey now and beginning to become skeptical.
Nice to see this forum at this moment. i wouldnt mind if they gave me some shares of UB group.
I recall redeeming pts for Del Mumbai sector in its final days and barely having few thousand miles more than a one way ticket. As soon I booked it , the website went down but I got an email with the PNR etc. The site was down for quite some time and the home page gave some error message . Maybe a day or two later , I tried a cached link from my browsing history and managed to open my account. Surprisingly no points were deducted for the previous trip and I used the points to book the return trip too.Since the trip duration was less than 24 hrs, managed to do a webcheckin in one go. Never opened my KF account after that .
@Ajay:
The reason the banks are going after him is because he gave personal guarantee to the banks and also charged a heft fees for the guarantee (INR 800 million if i remember it right). No such guarantee for any products or loyalty programs. Employees are a matter altogether different.
p.s: all the above information is from media in public domain 🙂
@Nilesh I am well aware of the charges against him. Are you saying a corrupt businessman who brought down a company and fled the country is not responsible to the customers who were fleeced by him but only the banks?
He certainly is…..disgruntled customers are free to sue him….caveat emptor 😉
I had 3.5 lakh miles and was upgraded to platinum just a few days before they shut down. Who will pay for that 🙂
That’s why it makes sense to use credit card for payments. It’s easier to initiate a charge back with the bank than to follow up with merchants for a refund. I usually send in one request to the merchant for a refund and then simply file for a chargeback with the credit card company. I have had a 100% success rate with each and every chargeback that I have filed over the years. Coming to the airline refund, its the Airline that owes the money and not the Promoter, so I don’t see any reason why Vijay Mallya or for that matter any other shareholder of Kingfisher Airline should cough up the money for the ticket refund.
@Manish, I raise the question for the same reason as the banks going after him, and the employees going after him for their salaries. The alleged malpractices in his company were done by him, so he owes everyone, or at least this is what is being made out. Hence…
@Ajay, if there are malpractices done by him, sure he should be prosecuted. And while we are paying back everyone, let’s also think about the shareholders who lost so much money. Anyone compensating them? Or we throw the Companies Act at them?
I had to initiate a chargeback on my credit card and got the money back. But it was the bank that returned my money and not the airline.