Just imagine this situation: you are staying in a remote village away from a metro-city. You have been enjoying the country-side and are preparing for your last day of stay to take a flight to another metro-city; your mobile phone rings. It is an SMS that reads: your flight has been canceled, please contact the customer care at XYZ number.
I was in a literal shock as this was the first time that such a thing had happened. However, I thought that something would be done about this as a reputed airlines can’t simply back-out like that. I made a call to the given number and inquired about the situation. I was told: Sir, you got two options. Either replace your tickets with another flight or ask for a refund. I asked for transferring the flights and asked for timings. One flight was about two hours later and one was the next day. I could not take any of them. When I asked for getting refund, they said that they will give me what I paid.
Now my dilemma:
1. I could not take a flight two hours later because I could not have made to it. (the airlines was very late in informing me that the booked flight has been canceled)
2. I could not ask for refund because the changes for booking a ticket with another airlines was almost double the price. This happens because airlines ticket prices soar as the departure date arrives nearer. (the airline did not have any collaboration with any other airlines to make an emergency arrangement. They refused to offer double refund so that I could book ticket with another airlines.)
My situation was pathetic and I had suffer loss on either side. If I just take a flight the next day, I miss a crucial meeting, which I could not afford to miss.
The overall situation was very badly handled by SpiceJet as they gave me no option. At the end, I had to suffer a loss of around 2,000 INR and had to miss the meeting, which I scheduled a few days ago.
This experience would make me apprehensive every time I book a ticket with SpiceJet because airline industry does not give you too many options. However, the airlines has lost my faith as a customer. They did not deal with the situation proactively and they did not show any concern for the customer who booked a ticket with them almost a month ago. Moreover, I had booked the ticket through the corporate section, which means that my organization could also feel bad about SpiceJet for making such a mess.
Entrepreneurs can learn a very good lesson from this: always go extra-mile in making sure that your customers retain their faith in your abilities, expertise, services, and products. A repeat customer is a equal to two new customers.
