Thai pilgrims stranded in northern India, thanks to Indian

About 100 Thai pilgrims, both lay people and monks, have been abandoned in the Buddhist city of Bodh Gaya in northern India because of poor service and negligence by Indian Airlines, the Thai consul in Calcutta alleged yesterday.
Consul Thatree Chauvachata said he was contacted two weeks ago by the Thai pilgrims. They claimed their return tickets on an Indian Airlines direct flight from the sacred city to Bangkok were cancelled without prior notice.
"I contacted the airline office in Calcutta and was only informed that the [seasonal] flight [service] had been ended on March 26, but, the Thai tourists had not been informed in advance," he said, in a telephone interview.
Thatree said he was "dissatisfied" with the way the airline had treated the Thai pilgrims as the return date to Bangkok of many of the passengers was shown on their tickets as April.
"I learned from the sales department that they too had not been informed by the operations department [about the final flight]," he said.
Teerawat Namdoung, a pilgrim who managed to get a direct flight back to Bangkok from Bodh Gaya, with help from the consulate, said news about the cancelled flights spread quickly among the Thai pilgrims after some tried to confirm their return tickets.
The airline had asked passengers to travel by road from Bodh Gaya to Calcutta - about 500 km - to take a flight back to Bangkok, he said.
13/04/07 Nation Multimedia, Thailand

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Categories: Foreign Apr 2007, Indian Apr 2007