Fly-cheap Chatterjees

Mumbai: For months, it was a mystery. Why could you never bag one of those cheap Air Deccan tickets to Calcutta unless you spelt your name in some version of Banerjee, Chatterjee or Mukherjee?
Tushar Kantilal Chandradas has now spilled the secret after police arrested the 48-year-old south Mumbai travel agent and four of his clients, all Calcuttans.
Nobody ever got the cheap tickets because Chandradas bought them all, online, whenever the airline came out with a low-fare scheme.
“He usually booked them under the surnames Banerji, Chatterjee and Mukherjee,” senior police inspector R. Rathore said. “He then sold them at a profit.”
Chandradas would usually charge Rs 500 extra, but with the original prices ranging from Rs 99 to Rs 999, it was still far cheaper and faster than AC three-tier. The lowest-fare tickets, after he had taken his cut, were still cheaper than three-tier ordinary sleeper class.
“A passenger with an e-ticket needs to prove his identity to the airport CISF. So the passengers were provided with fake IDs,” Rathore said.
The four passengers, all from Bowbazar, were travelling under the names B. Bannerji, M. Banerji, K. Banerji and L. Banerji when they aroused airline staff’s suspicions, Rathore said. “They have agreed to testify against Chandradas.”
13/05/07 Samyabrata Ray Goswami/The Telegraph

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Categories: Air Deccan May 2007