April saw most air passenger plaints for refunds in six months: DGCA Report

While India has been struggling to fight the second wave of Covid-19, air passengers continue to fight against airlines for their refund

While India has been struggling to fight the second wave of Covid-19, air passengers continue to fight against airlines for their refund. According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) monthly report, 75% air passengers have registered their complaints against the airlines, making them the highest in six months.

HT Image

These passengers are either the ones who are affected due to travel restrictions in their destination states or the ones who have been tested positive for the virus themselves and despite such challenges, airlines are seen to be deducting a major amount of cancellation charges.

According to previous DGCA reports, October had seen 83.9% passenger complaints on refund, November had seen 62.4%, December had seen 61.4%, January saw 41.%, February saw 54.6% and March saw 65.7% refund-related complaints.

According to DGCA’s monthly report, domestic carriers together registered 57.25 lakh air travellers in April compared to 78.22 lakh in March. In April 2020, commercial flight operations were suspended due to the nationwide lockdown.

A recovering Indian aviation industry went back into hazy skies after the impact of the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic was largely seen in April. As a result of this, the air traffic across the country declined, especially after foreign countries banned travel to/ from India.

While the government has allowed the airlines to operate 80% of their seating capacities, it is learnt the airlines are seeing poor seating capacity, due to the fear of getting exposed to the virus. The second wave of the pandemic has also brought in several travel restrictions/lockdowns in various states, not allowing people to travel. Moreover, a significant number of passengers are also seen avoiding travel voluntarily.

Due to these, passengers are demanding a full refund, whereas few airlines allegedly are charging cancellation amounts from them, leading to an increase in such complaints.

Saurabh Jain, a Malad resident who was to travel to Jaipur, could not go ahead with his travel plan as he along with his wife was detected with Sars CoV-2 last month. He was however not considered to have had a valid reason for not being able to board. “Initially the airline did not bother to refund me and even refused to consider our covid positive reports. I had to chase GoAir for twenty days to get my full amount back. They have however given me in the form of credit shell which is valid for a year.”