The Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring (CPGRAM) system has reportedly received maximum complaints from air passengers, and that too pertaining to crew behaviour and harassment of passengers. As per an official document from the Civil Aviation Ministry, the system received 3,524 complaints in the ‘harassment of passengers/ staff crew behaviour’ category and about 1822 complaints in the ‘loss of baggage’ category.
The third highest number of complaints, 1011, pertained to ‘tickets, fare and refund.
The online system, CPGRAM was launched in 2007-08 with an objective of rapid redressal and close monitoring of grievances by ministries or departments of the central government. Surprisingly, most complaints received are from air passengers, with regard to misbehavior by airline staff and harassment of flyers by airline crew.
The centralized grievance management system does not have an option for an airline-wise segregation of complaints.
The grievances received through the system are forwarded to the concerned airlines so that they can deal directly with the complainant.
What is probably lacking is an initiative by the Aviation Ministry to ensure that the complaints are addressed and handled appropriately, within a specific time frame. Lack of follow-up seems to be the main issue, without which there is no way of knowing whether the issues have been handled and the concerned customers satisfied with the manner in which the same was done.
