Broken Seats in Business Class? Singapore Airlines Pays for Couple’s “Mental Agony”

Singapore Airlines has ruled in favor of an Indian couple who complained that their business-class seats were damaged and has been ordered to pay over 2,040 pounds (INR 213,585). The New York Post published a report of this.

Senior police officer Ravi Gupta and his spouse were traveling via Singapore from Hyderabad to Australia when an incident occurred. During their trip, they encountered an event. Each business-class ticket was acquired at a price of 66,750 rupees, which is about equivalent to $8,000. The event took place in May of the previous year.

The duo noticed a malfunction in the automated reclining mechanism of their chairs. However, they were annoyed by the fact that they could only adjust the chairs manually during their five-hour trip. After lodging a complaint, they were offered a reward of 10,000 points or miles. Despite rejecting the offer, they filed a lawsuit against Singapore Airlines.

What can we expect from Singapore’s Business Class now?

In court documents, the Gupta family alleged that Singapore Airlines treated them as abhorrent “economy class passengers” despite the fact that they had paid for spacious business class accommodations. Additionally, they stated that they felt obligated to maintain vigilance throughout the ordeal.

Last Monday, the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission of Telangana granted the duo an amount of $2,400 as compensation from Singapore Airlines for inflicting emotional distress and bodily pain.

Singapore Airlines acknowledged the presence of a “defective” automatic reclining function in its seats, as stated in a communication to The Independent.

SIA can confirm that while the automated reclining feature on the seats of Mr and Mrs Gupta was defective, the manual recline function was operational throughout their travel from Hyderabad to Singapore. A spokeswoman informed The Independent that there were no complications with their connecting trip from Singapore to Perth.

The average length of a flight from Hyderabad to Singapore is around four hours. Due to the aircraft being fully booked, the personnel of SIA were unable to accommodate the clients in any other seats inside the Business Class section. We routinely and carefully monitored these consumers and offered to physically adjust the seat as necessary. The message expressed regret to Mr. and Mrs. Gupta for the trouble caused by the technical problem.