Over 60% airline passengers complained of ticket refund difficulties in December: DGCA
As additional Indians are warming up to air journey amid the pandemic, the place witnessed a 15 p.c maximize in domestic airline passengers in December 2020. As several as 7.33 million people travelled by air previous thirty day period against 6.35 million in November.
However, numerous Indians are however to get a refund of the air tickets they booked for the duration of the coronavirus lockdown, the Directorate of Standard of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has knowledgeable.
The DGCA has said that 61.4 per cent air travellers complained of ticket refund challenges in December by yourself, according to a report by Hindustan Periods. Most of these refund similar grievances associated India’s countrywide carrier Air India, followed by SpiceJet and TruJet.
The startling number of complaints surrounding refund connected issues were being raised very last month regardless of a way from the Supreme Court docket to all airlines to procedure the flight fare refund to all travellers who had booked tickets all through the lockdown.
Talking about the hold off in the refund method, Jay Bhatia, Vice-President, Vacation Agents Affiliation of India (TAAI), stated: “Air India is refunding the sum via travel agents, but the development is quite gradual. At existing, immediate refunds are receiving processed on our worldwide distribution procedure (GDS) only underneath the worth of our weekly revenue. As for SpiceJet, refunds for groups and sequence of brokers are currently being processed and will be settled by the end of this month. GoAir has also certain that it would approach the refund for all flight tickets booked throughout lockdown by January-end.”
All this was highlighted after an order was issued by the Supreme Court on June 13, 2020 inquiring personal airlines and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) to find a way to refund the airfare of travellers whose flights ended up cancelled all through the lockdown. It was then that conferences ended up held with all the stakeholders in July and it was decided that tickets booked immediately by travellers during lockdown would be thoroughly refunded.