Shivraj slams Air India over 'broken' seat

Bhopal/Mumbai: Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Saturday slammed Tata Group-owned Air India for allotting him a "broken and sunk" seat, prompting his ministerial colleague K Rammohan Naidu to instruct the airline to take "necessary action". Separately, Air India apologised for the incident and ordered a "thorough probe" while the DGCA sought a report from the airline in the matter.

Later in the day, Chouhan, the Union Minister for Agriculture, said he spoke about his experience so that the airline's management comes to know about it and other passengers do not face such problem again.

Describing the incident as an "unethical" practice wherein the airline charges passengers full fare and then makes them occupy defective seats, Chouhan in a post on X said he had boarded the Delhi-bound Air India flight AI436 from Bhopal for Delhi to inaugurate a farmers' fair in Pusa.

"I was allotted seat number 8C. When I reached my seat and sat down, I found that it was broken and sunk. Sitting was uncomfortable," the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister wrote on X. When he confronted the crew over the allotment of a defective seat, he was told that the management had been apprised about the condition of the seat, which shouldn't be sold to passengers. The Union Minister claimed several seats on the flight were in a similar condition. "Fellow passengers insisted that I exchange seats with them and take a better one, but I didn't want to trouble any of my friends for my own comfort. So, I decided to complete my journey on the same seat," he stated. Chouhan said he assumed Air India's service would have improved after being taken over by the Tata management, but he was mistaken. "I am not concerned about my discomfort, but charging passengers full fare and then making them sit on defective and uncomfortable seats is unethical. "Isn't this a form of deception towards passengers?" he asked.