Skyscanner Booking Included Infant Information but IndiGo Charged Extra Later
I am writing regarding my Coimbatore–Shirdi flight booking made via Skyscanner for travel on 31/05/2026, operated by IndiGo under PNR G3L84Y. During the original booking on 06/05/2026, I correctly entered all passenger details, including my infant’s date of birth, and paid the full fare for the complete journey (onward and return) as shown on Skyscanner. However, at Coimbatore Airport today, IndiGo staff informed us that we had to pay an additional 18,000 INR for the infant. This demand was made despite the fact that the infant’s date of birth had already been provided at the time of booking and the system had already calculated and charged a price. No one from Skyscanner or IndiGo informed us in advance that there would be any further infant charges, and this was only raised at the airport, putting us under pressure at the last moment. Because we were forced to pay in order to continue our journey, we paid the extra 18,000 INR. When we raised this with IndiGo, a senior staff member named Chinki Lodhi responded by asking why we did not calculate the infant’s age during booking. In my view, passengers cannot and should not be expected to manually calculate such things when the date of birth is already entered; the system should automatically apply the correct charges at the time of booking. This failure and the sudden demand at the airport caused us serious mental stress and harassment just before our flight. I request a full refund of the additional 18,000 INR that was taken for the infant at Coimbatore Airport, as the correct data was already provided during the original Skyscanner booking and any recalculation error is not our responsibility. In addition, I would like my complaint about the mental harassment we experienced due to this last‑minute demand to be formally recorded and investigated, and I expect a written explanation of how this happened and what steps will be taken to prevent similar incidents for other passengers in the future. If IndiGo and Skyscanner do not provide a full refund of the 18,000 INR, I intend to share this experience publicly, including on LinkedIn, to highlight the mental harassment we faced and the inadequacy of the current system for handling infant age and fare calculations.
Got the unexpected reply from INDIGO /Skyscanner and I replied to them with my technical points as below. "I reject this resolution. Your response completely evades the core issue of Deficiency in Service and Systemic Failure. Failure of Automated Validation: The complete and accurate Date of Birth (DOB) of the child was provided during the booking process on 06/05/2026. If your system—or the API provided to your booking partner, Skyscanner—accepts a valid DOB and issues a confirmed PNR under an "infant" category for a date where the passenger crosses the age threshold, it is a technical failure of IndiGo’s booking algorithm, not a passenger error. Financial Coercion under Duress: By failing to flag this discrepancy for 25 days prior to travel, IndiGo created an artificial emergency at the Coimbatore airport counter. Had your system correctly validated the DOB at the time of booking, I would have paid the standard advance child fare (approx. ₹6,000). Instead, my family was held hostage at the gate and forced to pay an exorbitant last-minute walk-in fare of ₹18,000. Unjust Enrichment: Refunding the ₹2,000 infant fee while retaining the ₹18,000 predatory gate-fare means IndiGo has financially profited from its own software flaw. I demand a refund of the price differential (₹12,000)—the difference between the last-minute airport fare I was forced to pay and the advance booking child fare I would have paid had your system functioned properly. If this is not resolved equitably within 48 hours, I will escalate this matter to the Ministry of Civil Aviation via the AirSewa Portal and file a formal case for "Unfair Trade Practices" with the National Consumer Helpline."
