Frankfurt-Bengaluru flight delayed by 36 hours, flyers gear up for legal action

They were flying Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Bengaluru and were diverted to Istanbul. They are upset they did not get timely information and assistance during the long wait

Some passengers who flew Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Bengaluru on October 18 are readying for a legal action as they arrived 36 hours late, and after a long ordeal.

German airline Lufthansa’s flight LH 754 was diverted to Istanbul, Turkey, because of a medical emergency shortly after it took off. About four hours later, passengers were deboarded at the Istanbul airport in Turkey. The flight was then postponed three times, and landed in Bengaluru on the afternoon of October 20.

Fliers are upset because they did not get enough on-ground assistance about accommodation and flight status.

About 380 people were on the flight, including two-time Grammy-award winner Ricky Kej from Bengaluru. “No hotel, no staff, no explanation” — He accused the airline of taking “Indian customers for granted” on Twitter.

Of them, 171 are united on a WhatsApp group, and are discussing options to claim a refund and how to seek legal redressal, says Vasishta Jayanti. He decided to fly out of Istanbul via Muscat on another airline, spending Rs 54,000, in addition to the Rs 73,000 he had paid Lufthansa for the round trip.

“Almost everybody in the group has filled out the feedback form we sourced from the Lufthansa website. Maybe one or two have received a response. I haven’t received any,” says the businessman.

The Lufthansa website talks of “the right to compensation if your arrival at the destination airport is delayed by more than three hours and the delay cannot be attributed to extraordinary circumstances”.

Together with his brother and three friends, Vasishta plans to file a consumer rights case after the Deepavali holidays. “Since we bought the tickets in India, we hope our laws have something to compensate us not just for the expenses but also the distress,” he says. (See box)

Since he had taken a travel policy covering flight delays, he is also talking to the insurance company to see if
he can get back the money he spent on the additional ticket.

Unlike Vasishta, Reshmy Prasad has received an email from Lufthansa, offering “payment” in response to her complaint. But she is not satisfied. “They haven’t defined how the compensation would be calculated,” the electrical engineer from Hebbal, who was on a work and holiday trip to Norway, explained.

She is also mulling a consumer case “for the deficiency of services”, including the lack of vegetarian meals on the six-and-a-half-hour flight from Istanbul. “I just ate bread and butter,” she says.

Since fliers had checked in most of their luggage, they had little toiletries, clothes and formula food for infants in their carry-on bags. Deepthi Mooga, guest lecturer at a college, had to make do with limited sanitary napkins she was carrying. She didn’t have an international debit card and was constantly worried about falling short of money.

“Compensation is needed but more importantly, we need an explanation from the airline and also the Indian authorities who have taken no action on the matter,” Deepthi says.

Aftermath

The passengers arrived exhausted. Some were on their feet enquiring about the flight status and some could not find rooms to rest as a limited number of accommodation was offered.

Gayathri Kulkarni and her husband flew from the US to India via Frankfurt to celebrate Deepavali in Mysuru,
her hometown. But she was still in Bengaluru at her relative’s place when we called on Tuesday, nursing an injury she had suffered because of the “torture of 36 hours”.

In her 70s, the research scientist woke up so tired the day after she arrived that she fell in the bathroom and hurt her left arm. “Now I am wearing a wristband and sling,” she says.

Vasishta and his brother are gearing up to file a police complaint about a phishing scam.

“Since my international roaming pack expired, I logged into a WiFi network at the Istanbul airport. Within 15 minutes, at least six unauthorised transactions to the tune of Rs 82,000 were attempted on my credit card. I called my bank to block the card but about Rs 33,000 had already been charged to my card. My brother’s card was also targeted and transactions worth Rs 24,000 approximately are under review,” he claims.

Reshmy and her husband are coping with the work that got pushed.

Taruna Reddy was on a paid work trip. But fed up with the incessant delays, she decided to fly out of Muscat instead, paying “about Rs 50,000 on the last-minute ticket”.

“The trip back was so mentally taxing that I could not get into the groove to celebrate Deepavali,” said Taruna, who works in the field of product management.

Airline’s response

On Twitter, Lufthansa said replacing oxygen cylinders used in a medical emergency took time, and the flight crew had exceeded its legally permitted duty time.

What does the law say?

Flight delays come under service-oriented grievances of The Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Indra Dhanush M A, advocate, says, “You can demand compensation from the airline for the delay, lack of explanation for the delay, absence of assistance to arrange accommodation, or if you had no access to medicines that you had checked in. Not just the ticket cost, you can also make out a case for the mental agony and loss of business because of the delay. You can claim compensation over and above what the airline has offered too.” This applies both to people who bought their tickets in India and also outside provided the airline carries out business or has an office here. “Success rate in favour of consumers in such cases is high,” he says.