KPN Travels & Disappointments

I’ve been travelling through KPN Travels from my teens say for last 13 – 14 years. There were days where we strive to travel in KPN for itz service. But off late it is sad to see itz service detonating as it become a Big name. I personally faced a lot of problems with them and last week when my colleague Mr.Ramanan had a very bad experience which I faced 6 months back. I thought it was high time to bring things to Light.

 Let me start it from problems I faced.

Personal Experience One: Six months back I booked a ticket in KPN from Madurai – Chennai. I reached the boarding point 20 min before bus arrived and I got the boarding pass immediately. Then I was asked to sit on the waiting area and they said they will call me once the Bus arrives. Since it has been an hour I went to them asking if the bus has arrived and to my shock they said bus has already left and they blamed me for not checking with them regularly. Also when I requested a refund they denied it nor did they say they can make alternate arrangement because it was the last bus. I didn’t want to create any problem because I thought I must take part of the blame for not checking with them regularly.

Personal Experience Two: Five months back (during January) I was travelling in KPN from Chennai – Madurai… They driver of the bus must have kept the A/C so much cold that no was able to sleep and every one wanted to Piss because of the A/C. We all insisted the driver to reduce the A/C but it fell into his deaf hears. Then later we all asked him to have a pit-stop which was also not considered. Over a point our anger was downgraded and we started begging with the driver as we were unable to bare the cold. The driver real psychopath took all of us to Madurai with great despair. I thought of escalating it and ignored it because I didn’t want to mess with the livelihood of a driver.

Personal Experience Three: Four months back again I was travelling in KPN from Chennai – Madurai and after travelling an hour from Chennai I want to PISS badly. I requested the Driver stop for a moment. He denied my request telling if he did so many others will request the same. Finally he stopped at the pit-stop point which took another 2 hours. Again I left it because I didn’t want to complain about this to anyone because I thought there is some mistake on my part.

Ramanan’s Experience: Last week after Startup City Event was done me & bala dropped Ramanan in Bhommanahalli by around 9 PM and he got his boarding slip by 9 o clock itself. Ramanan’s bus was scheduled at 11 o clock… Ramanan said he was checking every 15 min from 10.45 PM onwards and it seems he was told bus was late. Then finally there was a bus which came by 11.30 PM and when Ramanan asked if that was his bus he was told that was not his bus. But eventually that was the bus he should have boarded.

Again by 12 o clock when Ramanan approached them about the bus. He was told the bus already left and the person who was dealing with him went into hiding. Again he was not offered a refund. But he some how managed to convince them and he was sent in by 1 o clock special bus in a seat that is next to Drivers seat. He resisted traveling in that seat. They said there is nothing they can do if he can’t sit there. Eventually he had to travel sitting there and travel with great discomfort.

It is very much sad to see a company which was known for itz service levels and for the way they scaled in 15 years to come down so drastically in service levels. I don’t know if they have taken success for granted? Anyways on all occasions we were in receiving end and unable to do anything. Atleast by writing this blog let me get contented that I’m passing this to 100’s of people and make a small effort to show my protest.