Spice and Jet

Much before the skies turned turbulent for Spicejet, I had booked my return ticket from Kerala on one of their flights.  A week before the journey to Kerala I logged on to their website just to ensure that the flight was not caught in the turbulence only to be disappointed.  My flight was cancelled.  I tried to contact the customer care using all the numbers available and no one answered the calls.  Nor did my email elicit any response.  Finally I got my flight rescheduled from the Spicejet counter in Delhi airport.  It was a Kochi-Pune-Delhi flight.

When we reached Pune my wife and I were asked by a Spicejet staff who was checking the boarding passes of the seated passengers, “Why didn’t you de-board?  Your flight ends here.”  I protested and showed my ticket to Delhi.  “But your boarding pass is only up to here,” and she pointed at the boarding pass.  True, I had failed to notice that.  The man in Kochi airport who issued us the boarding passes had made a mistake.  Our checked-in bag was already unloaded, the staff informed me.

The young woman in the aggressively red uniform turned out to be extremely cordial.  She took our boarding passes and the ticket and said, “Wait till I come back.”  And she was back in ten minutes with our boarding passes to Delhi.  “Your bag has been put back in its place,” she reassured us with a beaming smile. 

The New Year has begun on the right note, I told my wife as we moved back to take out new seats in the last but one row of the plane.  An obstacle and a sweet victory.  The charming smile of the Spicejet staff in the red uniform was one of the many New Year gifts.