(TAN): An Indian family has lost a case that they had lodged against a travel agency five years ago after landing at a wrong airport in the US, The Times of India reported.
Bengaluru residents R Badarinath, 51, and his family members, holidaying in the US, had reached the airport in Charlotte city of North Carolina instead of the one in Charlottesville, Virginia, from where their tickets had been pre-booked for Washington Dulles International Airport.
Having lost the ticket money and forced to make fresh flight bookings, the family later took the Bengaluru-based travel agency Kuoni SOTC to a consumer court for deficiency of service.
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Badarinath and his family had got their travel tickets booked for their trip to the US in June and July of 2015 from SOTC. While on the trip, the family, in an attempt to fly to Washington Dulles in Chantilly, Virginia, went to the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina to take their scheduled United Airlines flight. But soon they realised their tickets were from Charlottesville, Virginia. Then, they had to spend over USD 1,927 on fresh tickets from North Carolina to Virginia. Badarinath and family accused Kuoni SOTC, stating that the travel agency had made an error because of which they had to spend more on fresh flight tickets. As the travel agency maintained it was not their mistake, the family approached the consumer court in February 2016.
SOTC’s lawyer argued that the tickets had been booked from Charlottesville, Virginia to Washington Dulles in Chantilly, Virginia as per the instructions of the consumer two months before the journey. He further stated the family members had mistakenly gone to Charlotte, North Carolina during the course of the US trip and had to book new tickets to get back to their touring schedule.
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At the end of the litigation that lasted four years and eight months, the court came to the conclusion that the complainants went to the wrong city in the US with a similar-sounding name because they hadn’t verified the air tickets before the journey and dismissed the case.
