Mumbai: Seven years after a passenger flew from Mumbai to Dallas via Frankfurt on Lufthansa on a business class "lie-flat seat" with a 170-degree recline, the national consumer commission held the advertisement of such seats to be "unfair trade practice" and directed the foreign airline to shell out Rs 20.5 lakh in compensation.
Vivek Talwar, the passenger, is to get Rs 50,000 and Rs 20 lakh are to be deposited with the Consumer Welfare Fund directed Justice V K Jain, the presiding member of the commission in his order. He also directed Rs 10,000 to be paid as litigation costs to the complainant, Society of Catalysts, a voluntary organization that pursued Talwar's case before the commission since 2009 and sought Rs 3.5 crore as compensation for all other consumers who may have been affected.
On September 1, 2008, Talwar flew on a Boeing 737 after seeing advertisements about its lie-flat seats since he said he wanted to sleep through the flight. But he complained that it only "semi-reclined" and he "barely slept on the 20-hour flight".
06/06/15 Swati Deshpande/Times of India
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Vivek Talwar, the passenger, is to get Rs 50,000 and Rs 20 lakh are to be deposited with the Consumer Welfare Fund directed Justice V K Jain, the presiding member of the commission in his order. He also directed Rs 10,000 to be paid as litigation costs to the complainant, Society of Catalysts, a voluntary organization that pursued Talwar's case before the commission since 2009 and sought Rs 3.5 crore as compensation for all other consumers who may have been affected.
On September 1, 2008, Talwar flew on a Boeing 737 after seeing advertisements about its lie-flat seats since he said he wanted to sleep through the flight. But he complained that it only "semi-reclined" and he "barely slept on the 20-hour flight".
06/06/15 Swati Deshpande/Times of India
