Passengers may get up to Rs 20,000 compensation for flight delays

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has drafted a charter according to which air travellers could be paid a compensation of up to Rs 20,000 for flight delays and cancellations. According to the draft charter, which would be made public soon, a compensation of Rs 5000 for being denied boarding has also been proposed.

Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey had said last week that the easy-to-understand passenger charter would mention all entitlements of an air traveller as the existing regulations of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the aviation watchdog, with regard to compensation were not "passenger-friendly", a PTI report said.

"Therefore, our ministry is working on an easy-to-understand passenger charter in which we will be capturing all the entitlements that passengers have with regard to the service they should expect from the amount paid," he had said.

The draft proposal includes full refund if the delay is over six hour. The compensation amount could be as high as Rs 20,000 if passengers miss connecting flights due to airline cancellations during the initial leg of the journey, the charter has proposed. In case of denial of boarding, the compensation could be Rs 5000 as such instances of have seen a sharp rise in the recent past, the officials said, adding the existing rules on this count remain flexible.

OneIndia News with PTI inputs