Refund passengers who cancelled flights in 2020 lockdown: Govt to airlines

New Delhi, Apr 08: The ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) has expressed dissatisfaction over airline companies defaulting on refunds to passengers over flight tickets that were booked for travel during the coronavirus induced nationwide lockdown last year but got cancelled.

"MoCA Secretary has chaired the meeting today with all the airline companies regarding credit shells refund and expressed dissatisfaction towards airline companies who did not refund the money. GoAir and IndiGo have submitted their undertaking to the ministry that they have refund all the credit shells to the passengers' ', an official told ANI.

Budget carrier IndiGo has processed 99.95 percent of the total amount owed to passengers whose flights got cancelled during the two-month lockdown beginning 25 March last year. The Supreme Court had last September instructed all the airlines to fully refund the passengers, whose flights were cancelled during the lockdown period (25 March, 2020 to 24 May, 2020) by 31 March, 2021.

"Since the resumption of operations in May 2020, IndiGo has been rapidly refunding amounts owed to customers whose flights had been cancelled during the lockdown. The airline has already processed close to Rs 1,030 crore of refunds, which amounts to about 99.95 percent of the total amount owed to its customers, IndiGo had said in a statement.

National carrier Air India, SpiceJet, Air Asia and Vistara are yet to refund total credit shells to the passengers.

Last year, the Supreme Court directed refund of air tickets, domestic and international, for travel during the COVID-19 lockdown period from March 25 to May 24 within three weeks from the date of the cancellation of flights.

Accepting the Centre's proposal, the top court directed that if the tickets have been booked through an agent for travel within the lockdown period, in all such cases full refund shall be given by the airlines immediately and the amount shall be passed on immediately by the agent to the passengers.