A recent incident involving malfunctioning business-class seats on Singapore Airlines has resulted in a ruling in favor of an Indian couple. Ravi Gupta, a police chief from Telangana, and his wife experienced issues with the automatic recline feature of their seats during a flight from Hyderabad to Australia that transited through Singapore.
Despite paying a substantial amount for their business-class seats, the couple found themselves unable to recline their seats automatically, leading to discomfort during their five-hour journey. Upon complaining to the airline, the couple was offered frequent flyer miles as compensation, which they rejected. They then decided to take legal action against Singapore Airlines, accusing the carrier 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 the inconvenience experienced by Mr. and Mrs. Gupta and explained