Air India’s online booking facility has been causing trouble for officials of the airline for the last three months. According to sources, when J class (business class) tickets are booked on Air India’s website the portal displays the message ‘Not Available’ indicating that all tickets are sold. However, officials have found that on several occasions the portal has displayed the message despite availability of tickets on the concerned flight.

J class tickets are a major source of revenue for the airline as they are priced roughly three times the price of economy class tickets.

“There have been instances when our portal has showed that all tickets from J class have been booked but on enquiring at the airport we have found that seats were available on the same flight,” said a senior Air India official. “There was this flight to Frankfurt where the portal showed that all J class tickets were booked however on checking I realised that there was only 40% occupancy in that section,” he added. Sources also said that the problem was also acknowledged by Air India’s CMD Arvind Jadhav in one of the first turnaround committee meetings held about three months ago.

The entire Air India portal has been described sort of archaic compared to competing domestic and international carriers’ websites. “They had promised seamless connectivity from ‘Patna to Pennsylvania’ when the two airlines were merging in 2007 but the website is anything but an example of that,” said the Air India official.

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