Airline to pay Rs. 30k for luggage delay

Waited long at the airport baggage conveyor belt and did not find your luggage? On enquiry, you realise it has not even been boarded into your flight?

Waited long at the airport baggage conveyor belt and did not find your luggage? On enquiry, you realise it has not even been boarded into your flight?

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You are entitled to a hefty compensation even if you get your luggage back after some delay.

A consumer disputes redressal forum in the Capital has in a significant judgment directed Jet Airways to pay a compensation of Rs. 30,000 to Delhi-based lawyer Ankit Jain for not carrying his luggage in a Delhi-Bhopal flight which adversely affected his work, meetings and caused "embarrassment, mental agony and suffering”.

"Keeping in view the expenditure proved on record by the complainant amounting to about Rs. 10,000 and keeping in view the deficiency in delivery of baggage leading to postponement of meetings and accompanied mental tension and agony we allow compensation of Rs. 30,000,” a three-judge bench headed by the forum’s president CK Chaturvedi ruled.

The 29-year-old lawyer said,"It is high time that all airlines are taken to task for delay in delivery of cargo luggage and such instances are on the rise. Fifteen other passengers also did not get their luggage. Being a lawyer, I decided to take up the issue.”

Ankit had boarded a 6am JetLite flight to Bhopal on January 14, 2011.

On reaching Bhopal at 7am, it turned out that the airline had not transported his baggage with crucial documents for meetings and personal belongings, such as clothes.