Holding that Qatar Airways acted arbitrarily by denying boarding to two minor children during their return journey from India to Italy despite permitting them to travel on the same documents earlier, the Ernakulam district consumer disputes redressal commission (DCDRC) has directed the airline to pay ₹10 lakh as compensation to the family for mental agony and hardship.
The commission also awarded ₹25,000 towards litigation costs and directed the airline to make the payment within 45 days, failing which the compensation amount will carry 9% interest from the date of filing of the complaint until realisation.
In an order last week, the bench of president DB Binu and members V Ramachandran and Sreevidhia TN said, "The materials on record further reveal that, apprehending the loss of their employment abroad, the complainant and his wife were left with no option but to entrust their children including an infant of lactation to the care of their relatives in India and proceed on their return journey without him. The mental agony, emotional trauma and untold hardship suffered by the parents were the direct and inevitable consequence of the wrongful conduct of Qatar Airways."
"This commission has no hesitation in holding that the action of the opposite party (Qatar Airways) in permitting the infant to travel to India while refusing permission for the return journey on the very same travel documents amounts to a clear deficiency in service as well as an unfair trade practice," the bench said.
According to the complaint, Roshan Jose, who works in Italy, travelled with his wife and two minor children from Venice to Kochi via Doha in November 2018 after Qatar Airways verified their travel documents, issued boarding passes and permitted them to complete the journey without objection.
However, when the family reported at Kochi airport on 3 December 2018, for their return flight to Venice via Doha, airline officials kept them waiting for nearly two-and-a-half hours while verifying the children's travel documents. Barely ten minutes before departure, the airline refused to issue a boarding pass to the couple's six-year-old child, claiming he did not possess an independent Italian visa.
With both parents required to return to work in Italy, they were compelled to leave the child with relatives in Kerala before continuing their journey with their infant.
The family's ordeal did not end there.
After reaching Doha, airline officials again subjected them to document verification despite having already issued boarding passes from Kochi. Following nearly ten hours of waiting, Qatar Airways refused to allow the family's ten-month-old infant to board the connecting flight to Venice, even though the child already held a boarding pass issued in Kochi after document verification.
Faced with the prospect of losing her job, the mother travelled alone to Italy while the father returned to Kochi with the infant. The six-year-old was later flown back to Italy separately after obtaining additional documents, while the infant also had to be taken back later, forcing the family to incur significant additional expenses and undertake multiple journeys.
Before the commission, Qatar Airways argued that passengers are responsible for carrying valid travel documents and visas.
The airline maintained that the six-year-old was denied boarding following instructions from immigration authorities in Venice, while the infant was later refused permission to travel from Doha because the child allegedly lacked valid travel documents required under Italian immigration rules. It also relied on Article 9 of the General Conditions of Carriage, which permits airlines to refuse transport where passengers do not possess valid travel documents.
The commission rejected the airline's defence, observing that Qatar Airways had itself verified the family's documents and allowed all members to travel from Venice to Kochi without raising any objection.
It noted that if the children's travel documents were genuinely inadequate, the airline should have refused boarding at Venice itself rather than permitting the onward journey and later taking a contradictory stand during the return journey.
The commission further observed that the airline had even issued boarding passes from Kochi to Doha and onward to Venice after verifying the same documents, making the subsequent refusal at Doha 'patently inconsistent'.
"The conduct of the opposite party in preventing a child from accompanying his parents on the return journey is wholly arbitrary and has shocked the conscience of this commission," the order said. It further observed that having allowed the infant to travel from Venice to India, "the subsequent refusal of permit for the return journey from India on the very same set of documents is patently inconsistent, unjustified and highly reprehensible."
The commission held that the airline's actions forced the parents to leave both children behind in India because of the fear of losing their employment abroad, causing severe emotional trauma and mental agony.
It concluded that the airline's inconsistent treatment of the family's travel documents amounted to both a deficiency in service and an unfair trade practice, holding that the complainants had successfully established their case through oral and documentary evidence.
(C.C. No.1ğ43/2019 Date: 14 July 2026)
