Satish Kaushik, a Bollywood actor, shared a post on social media in which he said that the private airline Go First was getting money from passengers in shady ways. He talked about a recent bad experience where he paid extra money for a certain seat, but the airline sold that seat to someone else. Wednesday morning, Satish wrote on Twitter that he paid Rs 25,000 for a middle seat on a Go First flight from Mumbai to Dehradun. He found out later that someone else had bought the same seat.
The actor wrote, “It’s very sad that @GoFirstairlines has to use questionable ways to make money from passengers. My office paid 25K to book two seats for Satish Kaushik and Ajay Rai in the first row and the middle seat on G8 2315 from Mumbai to Dehradun on June 23. Even though my office paid for the middle seat, they sold it to another passenger.”
He also said that the people on the plane tried to help him and were sorry.
“Mr. Zubin from Go First tried to help by telling the other passenger that he would move him to the next flight since the flight was full and there was no seat, but the other passenger was adamant. After the other passenger didn’t get a seat and the flight was put on hold, I decided to give him the seat.
“Zubin and the flight attendants, who were shocked by the mistake made by their own company, thanked me. The flight attendant told me that I should write to her airline’s office about this mistake and apologise. Zubin told me I should tell the office and get the money back for that seat.
“I told Zubin it would never happen, and just like I thought, it did. Zubin, my office is calling customer service, and they are telling me what I expected to hear: “NO REFUND.”
The actor asked the airline about their practises and said that they were bothering passengers.
“Is it true? Is this how to make extra cash by bothering a passenger? It’s not about getting money back, but about letting them know what’s wrong,” his note said. In the end, he said, “I could have held the flight, but I didn’t want to keep the passengers waiting for more hours after they had already been waiting for three hours. #GoFirstairways, best of luck.”
Go First replied to the thread by saying, “Dear Satish, we’re sorry for any trouble this may have caused. Our office will definitely contact you soon.”
In response to the situation, a spokesperson for Go First said in a statement, “We are very sorry for the trouble we caused Mr. Satish Kaushik with the middle seat (called “Go More”) on flight G8 2315.”
“We are very upset about what happened on his trip, and we think that mistakes like that shouldn’t be allowed, and that no customer should ever have to go through something like that.”
“Go First called Mr. Satish Kaushik right away, apologised, and offered a refund, which is now being processed,” a spokesperson for the company said.