How to File an AirSewa Complaint

An AirSewa complaint works best as the third step, not the first. The order that holds up is: complain to the airline through its own customer channel, escalate to the airline's nodal officer (and then its appellate authority), and only then file on AirSewa, the Ministry of Civil Aviation's grievance portal. At each step, the thing that decides how seriously you are taken is the record you bring. This guide walks the sequence and lists what to keep. It does not draft your complaint for you, and it does not tell you what you are owed; the airline's own published policy does that.

Why the order matters

AirSewa is not a tribunal that rules on your case. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has said that grievances lodged through AirSewa, or through the government-wide CPGRAMS portal, "are taken up with the concerned airlines for redressal" (Press Information Bureau, 2 February 2023, captured 2026-09-27). In other words, a complaint filed on the portal travels back to the same airline you would have written to anyway.

So if the airline has never heard from you, it sees a forwarded grievance with no history. If you have already written to customer care and the nodal officer, the grievance lands on a paper trail of dates, reference numbers and the airline's own replies, which is much harder to close with a template answer.

The same release notes that every airline appoints a nodal officer and an appellate authority and "displays their contact details on their respective websites" (PIB, captured 2026-09-27). Those two roles are the steps between customer care and the government portal, and skipping them usually just sends you back to them.

Step 1: The airline's own customer channel

Start where the airline expects you to start: its customer support form, chat, email or phone line, as listed on its own website. If you flew IndiGo or Air India, that means the airline's own website and its listed support channels, not a third-party complaints page.

Write it once, clearly, and in writing; a phone call leaves you nothing to forward later. If you do call, note the date, the time and any case number the agent reads out.

The record to keep at this step:

• Your booking reference (PNR), flight number and date of travel.
• The boarding pass, e-ticket or itinerary email.
• Any receipts for money you spent because of the problem.
• Photos, if the complaint is about a bag, a seat or the aircraft.
• The complaint you sent, with its date, and the case number the airline gave you.
• Every reply, saved as it arrived rather than retyped.

Give the airline a fair window to respond. A note that says "wrote on this date, no substantive reply by this date" is what the next step needs.

Step 2: The nodal officer, then the appellate authority

If customer care does not resolve it, or replies with something that does not address what you raised, escalate to the airline's nodal officer. Airlines publish the nodal officer's contact details on their own websites (PIB, captured 2026-09-27), usually on a contact or grievance page. Use the airline's page as the source for those details, since names and addresses change.

Do not start from scratch. Quote your original case number, attach the earlier exchange, and say plainly what is still unresolved. The most useful thing you can hand the nodal officer is evidence that the front line had its chance.

If the nodal officer's answer still leaves the issue open, the airline's appellate authority is the next level inside the airline. The same PIB release describes an option "to file an appeal" when a passenger is not satisfied with the airline's resolution. Forward the whole thread, not a summary.

The record to add at this step:

• The nodal officer's reply, or a dated note that none came.
• The appellate authority's reply, or a dated note that none came.
• A one-line timeline: each message you sent, each reply, each date.

Step 3: Filing on AirSewa

AirSewa is the Ministry of Civil Aviation's portal for flight status, schedules and grievance reporting; its site lists "Report Grievance" alongside the status and schedule tools (AirSewa, captured 2026-09-27). There is also an official app. Its Google Play listing describes AirSewa as "an initiative by the Ministry of Civil Aviation" that lets users submit grievances for selected categories, such as an airline or an airport, and track them; the listing was last updated on 19 August 2026 (Google Play, captured 2026-09-27).

When the portal and app launched in 2016, press coverage of the launch described a flow in which passengers could upload voice or video with a written description, receive a unique reference number by email and SMS for each grievance, track its status against that number on the web or the app, and rate the experience once the grievance closed (SP's AirBuz, Issue 6/2016, captured 2026-09-27). That is how the system was designed; portals change, so follow what the live site asks for.

A few practical points that follow from how the system works:

• Pick the right category. Airline and airport are separate grievance categories on AirSewa (Google Play, captured 2026-09-27). If your bag was damaged on the belt at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International, think about whether the problem was the airline's handling or the airport's facility before you choose.
• Lead with the history. Put your airline case number, the nodal officer's reference and the dates in the first lines. Because the grievance is taken up with the airline, the reviewer on the other side will read it next to the airline's own file.
• Attach, do not describe. Upload the boarding pass, receipts and the email thread rather than paraphrasing them.
• Save the reference number the moment it appears, and screenshot the confirmation.

If AirSewa does not settle it

CPGRAMS, the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System at pgportal.gov.in, is the Government of India's general grievance platform, open 24x7 for grievances "on any subject related to service delivery" (CPGRAMS, captured 2026-09-27). The PIB release names it as a second route for air passengers alongside AirSewa (PIB, captured 2026-09-27). One detail from the CPGRAMS home page is worth knowing before you start: it states that grievances sent by email "will not be attended to", so lodge it on the portal itself.

What this guide does not cover

This is a guide to sequence and record-keeping. It does not say whether a delay, cancellation, denied boarding, lost bag or refund request entitles you to anything, or how much. Those answers depend on the airline, the route, the ticket and the circumstances, and they are set out in the airline's own conditions of carriage and passenger policy. Read that policy before you write, and quote the part you are relying on. A complaint that cites the airline's own published words is harder to wave away than one that cites a figure from a blog.

Where TrackMyWings fits

TrackMyWings™ is a live flight-tracking platform in development, India-first in go-to-market. A private beta has been running on the Play internal testing track since 2026-08-24, Android only, and there is no public launch date yet. Gate and status alerts are among the features planned for launch. None of that replaces the airline's own status messages, which remain the record to screenshot and save for a complaint.

Questions people ask

Can I file an AirSewa complaint without contacting the airline first? The portal does not stop you, but because AirSewa grievances are taken up with the airline, a complaint with no airline history behind it tends to start the process over. Writing to the airline first gives the grievance something to stand on.

Where do I find the nodal officer for my airline? On the airline's own website, usually its contact or grievance page. Airlines display the nodal officer's and appellate authority's contact details there.

Will AirSewa tell me what compensation I should get? No. AirSewa routes your grievance to the airline. What you are entitled to is set by the airline's own published policy and the rules that apply to your ticket, so check the airline's page directly.

Sources

• Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Civil Aviation, "Aggrieved air passengers can lodge their grievances through CPGRAMS and AirSewa Portal," 2 February 2023, https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1895740, captured 2026-09-27
• AirSewa, Ministry of Civil Aviation portal, https://www.airsewa.gov.in/, captured 2026-09-27
• Google Play, AirSewa app listing, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=aero.aai.airsewa&hl=en_IN, captured 2026-09-27
• SP's AirBuz, "AirSewa App and Portal Launched," Issue 6/2016, https://www.spsairbuz.com/story/?id=610&h=AirSewa-App-and-Portal-Launched, captured 2026-09-27
• CPGRAMS, Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System, https://pgportal.gov.in/, captured 2026-09-27