‘Some problems need a human’: Founder's viral post on AI support failing at airport strikes a chord online

Swapnil Srivastav, founder of Kidbea in a long post on X shared an incident that took place at Gorakhpur airport. Swapnil who was travelling with his sister last Sunday revealed that her boarding pass had a spelling error- "just the last letter of her name."

He shared that the security stopped her and sent them to the counter. "Counter said call Akasa support," he wrote.

Adding, "We called. AI agent picks up. We said the PNR like 5–6 times. AI couldn’t recognise it. Not even once. We’re standing at the airport, stressed, flight’s approaching and this bot is just not getting it."

He shared that they gave and went back and shouted at the staff. “They fixed it in 30–40 mins manually. And I just stood there thinking. Bro who thought deploying an AI agent for customer support was a good idea? The person calling support is already having a bad day. They’re not calling to chat. They’re calling because something went wrong. That’s the worst time to make them repeat a PNR to a bot 6 times.”

He concluded his post by saying, “Some problems just need a human on the other side. AI is powerful. But knowing where not to use it is the real skill. Founders take note.”

Check out the viral post here:

Since being posted, the tweet has gathered over 543.9k views and an array of comments.

A user echoed Swapnil's sentiments and wrote, "Customer Care executives have to be Human only, AI is not solving the problem, in fact it's irritating the customer.

Another user commented, “It keeps saying thanks for your patience, hope your issue is resolved without even understanding or worst is giving two options while none of them would go for your situation. You can repeat same 6 steps 6 time still wont get any executive to fix the issue!!!!”

"Using AI agents for customer support is one of the most misguided ideas, especially in urgent/panic situations. However, automating certain basic information can be effective and beneficial," the third user wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Akasa Air also responded to the post, "Hi Mr. Srivastav, we regret the inconvenience caused to your sister and this is not the experience we aim to provide our passengers. To help us review and address this further, could you please share your 6‑digit alphanumeric booking reference along with your contact number via DM."

(This report is based on user-generated content from social media. Livemint has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)