About 60% airline travellers complained of ticket refund difficulties in December: DGCA

About 60% airline travellers complained of ticket refund difficulties in December: DGCA



a large passenger jet flying through the air: Over 60% airline passengers complained of ticket refund issues in December: DGCA


© Ameya Joshi
Over 60% airline travellers complained of ticket refund problems in December: DGCA

As a lot more Indians are warming up to air journey amid the pandemic, the country witnessed a 15 p.c maximize in domestic airline travellers in December 2020. As lots of as 7.33 million people today travelled by air previous thirty day period towards 6.35 million in November.

On the other hand, several Indians are but to get a refund of the air tickets they booked for the duration of the coronavirus lockdown, the Directorate of Common of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has educated.

The DGCA has explained that 61.4 percent air passengers complained of ticket refund challenges in December by itself, according to a report by Hindustan Instances. Most of these refund associated grievances concerned India’s countrywide carrier Air India, followed by SpiceJet and TruJet.

The startling range of grievances bordering refund associated challenges were lifted very last thirty day period even with a path from the Supreme Court to all airways to course of action the flight fare refund to all passengers who had booked tickets during the lockdown.

Talking about the hold off in the refund system, Jay Bhatia, Vice-President, Journey Agents Association of India (TAAI), stated: “Air India is refunding the amount through vacation brokers, but the development is incredibly slow. At current, immediate refunds are getting processed on our world-wide distribution process (GDS) only down below the worth of our weekly income. As for SpiceJet, refunds for teams and sequence of agents are being processed and will be settled by the conclude of this month. GoAir has also assured that it would system the refund for all flight tickets booked during lockdown by January-conclusion.”

All this was highlighted right after an buy was issued by the Supreme Court on June 13, 2020 inquiring personal airways and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) to locate a way to refund the airfare of passengers whose flights were cancelled for the duration of the lockdown. It was then that conferences have been held with all the stakeholders in July and it was determined that tickets booked instantly by travellers all through lockdown would be completely refunded.