The ruling in favor of the Indian couple, Ravi Gupta and his wife, who experienced issues with malfunctioning business-class seats on Singapore Airlines during a flight from Hyderabad to Australia, has set a precedent for future cases involving faulty seats. The couple paid a substantial amount for their business-class seats but found themselves unable to recline their seats automatically due to an issue with the automatic recline feature. Despite being offered frequent flyer miles as compensation, the couple decided to take legal action against Singapore Airlines, accusing the airline of treating them poorly and failing to provide the expected level of service for business-class passengers.
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in Telangana ruled that Singapore Airlines must pay the couple $2,400 for the mental and physical distress caused by the faulty seats. In response to the incident, Singapore Airlines acknowledged the issue with the automatic recline function on the seats and confirmed that only the manual recline feature was operational during the flight. The airline expressed regret for any inconvenience experienced by Mr. and Mrs. Gupta and explained how challenging it was to reseat customers due to a full flight.
The crew offered assistance by manually reclining the seats when necessary, although Mr. and Mrs. Gupta felt that lacked their expectations of business-class travel experience without an automatic recline feature. The ruling sets a precedent for future cases involving faulty business-class seats on Singapore Airlines and highlights how important it is for airlines to provide their passengers with comfortable seating arrangements that meet their expectations.
