- Denial of boarding pass to customer for no fault of their own ^Open

Anirudh Dattatri filed this complaint against British Airways on May 30, 2018

My parents both senior citizens aged above ** years endured a traumatic experience at the British Airways Bengaluru center under the hands of a check in agent named Shylesh.Both live in another city and had made arrangements and traveled all the way to Bengaluru Iinternational Airport only to be denied entry for baseless reasons and had to endure embarrassment and humiliation under the rude behavior of the check in agent.My parents' name in their passport are as follows:
*. Mother
Given Name: Padma Rekha
Last Name:
*. Father
Given Name: Dattatri Turuvekere Ranganatha
Last Name:
Their tickets were booked through makemytrip.com with the pnr being shihtn. They were denied boarding passes for no fault of theirs and they are yet to recover from the shock.
*. Their names printed on the ticket were absolutely at par with their passports/visa.
*. Till the last minute no e-reminders were sent to the passengers regarding the journey which is customary to other airlines. Had we received any info earlier, we could have taken adequate measures.
*. Check-in agent Shylesh/Shailesh bluntly refused to issue Boarding Passes for reasons listed below:
a. My father's name was apparently entered in the system as:
Last Name:Dattatri Turuvekere First Name: Ranganatha
b. Since they have no last name in their passports, they should have to enter the names while booking the ticket as:
First Name:lnu Last Name: <First Name>
This format, he claimed was required by the "system" of American Airlines. He threatened that they would be denied entry to the United States at immigration and would be deported by the authorities.
*. The passengers had no clue that there was a mismatch from the ticket and the system until they were told so. Also, the formatting issue had to be notified beforehand if you expect the passengers to adhere to it.
*. The agent told that the names had to be corrected and re-issued by American Airlines.
*. I spent hours talking to the American Airlines call center who said they would have no problem whatsoever with the passengers and the requirement for First Name to be written as "lnu" is non-existent. They contacted their One World helpdesk finally who said they too had no such requirements. Finally, they said to name the concerned agent directly to talk to him. By the time I reached him, the flight was closed for boarding and had departed. He told the ticket is valid and could be re-used.
*. I called American Airlines call center again narrating the whole ordeal - and a person actually claimed to make the required changes in the ticket.I was on call for about an hour.However, when I called American Airlines the next day, to my utter shock,they told me no such changes were made nor was possible.They claimed that it had to be changed through makemytrip.com.The makemytrip officials said, the American Airlinesofficials had to change it when contacted.This ping-pong continued for hours while the hapless customers were left in the lurch.The makemytrip officials contacted AA service desk in India and they came to the conclusion that American Airlineswere responsible for the change. When I called the American Airlines customer service for one final time,they refused to change.
*. Finally we had to cancel the ticket and suffer some financial loss as well as immense mental pain and agony.
In this context, could you clarify the following:
*. How were the name in the system mismatched when the ticket showed perfect match with the passport?
*. Why wasn't this brought to notice to the passengers earlier?Booking a ticket for no trivial amount, it is the airlines responsibility to bring anything to notice well in advance.
*. When we asked the check-in agent to contact his supervisor, he rudely refused. He was obnoxious and arrogant for no reason.The way he treated customers arrogantly was no way any person is to be treated by any business.He left the customers abruptly without a single word of apology and care for the customers.
*. Why is there no co-ordination between British Airways and American Airlines as to who bears responsibility to the ticket when something goes wrong?Are financial aspects the sole concerns and are customers secondary left to call and wait hours between different call centers with no resolution to their grievances?
*. Are aged citizens shown zero concern and respect by your officials?Are they not suggested alternate arrangements if they are denied boarding for no fault of their own?
*. What will you do to avoid further incidents in the future?
Finally,my parents booked tickets through another airlines-they encountered no problems with the immigration whatsoever, and their journey was perfectly smooth.

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