Business class seats are meant to be able to recline automatically using electronic buttons.
Singapore Airlines has been ordered to pay more than 2,040 pounds (INR 213,585) to an Indian couple who said their business-class seats malfunctioned, New York Post reported. Ravi Gupta, a police chief from Telangana, was flying with his wife on a flight from Hyderabad to Australia, which transited through Singapore. They paid 66,750 rupees (about $800) for each business-class seat. Notably, the incident happened last year in May.
The couple complained that their seats’ automatic recline feature didn’t work. Instead, the seats could only be manually reclined, leaving them frustrated during their five-hour trip. When they complained, they were offered 10,000 frequent flyer miles or loyalty points each. However, they declined the offer and sued Singapore Airlines.
In court documents, the Guptas accused Singapore Airlines of making them feel like lowly ”economy-class passengers” despite them paying for spacious business-class accommodation. They also said they were forced to stay awake throughout the journey as a result.
Last week, the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in Telangana, ruled in the couple’s favour and ordered Singapore Airlines to pay them $2,400 ”for causing mental agony and physical suffering.”
In a statement to The Independent, Singapore Airlines did confirm the ”faulty” automatic recline ability in their seats.
“SIA can confirm that while the automatic recline function on Mr and Mrs Gupta’s seats was faulty, the manual recline function was working on their flight from Hyderabad to Singapore. There were no issues on their connecting flight from Singapore to Perth,” a spokesperson told The Independent.
”The flight duration from Hyderabad to Singapore is typically around four hours. As it was a full flight, SIA staff, unfortunately, could not reseat the customers elsewhere in the Business Class cabin. Our crew proactively checked in on these customers regularly and offered to manually recline the seat when needed. We apologise to Mr and Mrs Gupta for the inconvenience caused by this mechanical issue,” the statement added.
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