When two friends from Sector 38, Chandigarh went to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia by purchasing tickets from an Indian airline, they had no idea that they would be stranded in a foreign country as their flight left earlier than its departure time leaving them behind (prepone). This incident happened on April 2, 2024 when they reached Denpasar Airport, Bali for their return journey, and discovered that their scheduled flight had been preponed without any prior intimation. Due to this unilateral change in schedule by the airline, they missed their flight and were left stranded at a foreign airport. They had no option but to arrange alternate travel by purchasing new tickets at a cost of Rs 51,000.Owing to the delay in arrival, they had also missed their connecting flight from Delhi to Chandigarh and had incurred additional expenditure towards local transportation. Feeling aggrieved, they at first issued a legal notice to the airline. Getting no relief, they filed a complaint against the airline first with the district consumer commission and ultimately with the Chandigarh State Consumer Commission.The district consumer commission had ordered the airline to refund Rs 58,641 with interest and had awarded Rs 7,000 as compensation. Feeling dissatisfied with this small compensation they appealed to the state consumer commission, as reported by LiveLaw.The state commission heard the case on February 11, 2026 and passed its judgement in their favour on April 1, 2026.Also read: Airline loses bag with sacred items; Indian passenger to get Rs 1.19 lakh compensation The state consumer commission said that the Indian airline is liable for deficiency in service for preponing a flight without prior intimation to passengers. The state consumer commission also said that timely communication of changes in departure time is a fundamental obligation of the airline and on this ground awarded Rs 50,000 compensation to the passengers.Read below to know about how they won the case.Chandigarh State Consumer Commission order and analysisThe Chandigarh state consumer commission said that it is not in dispute that the airline had preponed the flight from Denpasar to Delhi without giving any prior intimation to them. Moreover, the state consumer commission said that this act of the airline had already been held by the District Commission to constitute deficiency in service, and the said finding has attained finality as the same has not been challenged by the Airline.Emphasising the duty of airlines, the state consumer commission observed that timely communication of schedule changes is a fundamental obligation. It further noted that the complainants had reached the airport as per the scheduled departure time, only to find that their flight had already been rescheduled, rendering their tickets unusable.The Chandigarh State Consumer Commission highlighted the fact that they were stranded in a foreign airport and as a result they experienced significant stress and also financial burden as they came back to India by booking another flight ticket.Moreover, after reaching Delhi they again had to bear cost as their Chandigarh connecting flight was missed due to this mishap.Thus the State Consumer Commission increased the compensation of Rs 7,000 awarded by the district consumer commission.The Commission partly allowed the appeal and modified the District Commission's order by:Enhanced compensation of Rs 50,000 Rs 15,000 towards litigation expensesRefund of Rs 58,641 with interest @ 9% per annum