On a personal trip to the United States through a Tata Group-owned Air India flight, Ministry of Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal got an Economy Class ticket at a cheaper price and was further upgraded to business class.
Bansal was travelling to the United States with his wife Aparna Bansal on May 7 on Air India flight AI-105. A day before his flight, the Office of Chief Commercial Officer (CCO Nipun Aggarwal) had written an email to Air India officials to ‘meet and assist’ Bansals and upgrade their tickets to Business Class on ‘subject to availability', as per The Indian Express report.
As per the report, Bansal and his wife’s flight tickets were booked on April 1, 2022, and February 24, 2022, respectively. While the publication's sources have reported that Bansals got their tickets at a ‘much-reduced rate’, the round trip tickets for normal passengers were Rs 80,000 (for February 24) and nearly Rs 1.41 lakh (for April 1).
When the publication contacted Bansal regarding this, he replied “I would suggest that you verify the facts with the owners of the airline first.”
On the same matter, Aruna Gopalakrishnan, ED, Corporate Affairs, said, “Air India has an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for extending protocol and upgrades subject to space availability and other related factors. We would not like to comment on individual cases.”
Rajiv Bansal is a 1988 batch IAS officer who was appointed as Civil Aviation Secretary on September 22. 2021. Previously, Bansal has served as Air India Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD).