Flyers hoping to get back home after first lockdown, continue to remain stranded

Aarti Sabharwal, who works at a multinational company in Gurugram, had to catch a flight to Jabalpur from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Wednesday

Aarti Sabharwal, who works at a multinational company in Gurugram, had to catch a flight to Jabalpur from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Wednesday morning to go see her family. As the first phase of lockdown was ending on April 14, she had booked her flight a day later, unaware that the suspension of flights would also be extended up to May 3. Her wait to meet her family seems to be longer than she expected.

HT Image

Sabharwal is stranded in Gurugram, away from her family in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, since March 25, the day 21-day-long lockdown began.

“After waiting for 21 days, we booked our tickets with SpiceJet. If there was no clarity on the extension of the lockdown or on whether the flights would be allowed to operate even after April 14, the airlines shouldn’t have accepted bookings at all. Not just this, but even after the lockdown extension was announced, until late Tuesday night, we could see the flight status scheduled, not cancelled. We tried calling the airline repeatedly, but there was no response,” she said.

Sabharwal said there was no clarity over the refund of money. “The tickets were more expensive than usual and we have got no response from the airline on the refund. The portal through which we had booked the tickets is still awaiting a response from the airline,” she said.

SpiceJet said in a statement in Tuesday that given the extended lockdown “we are cancelling the reservations of those who booked themselves for travel till May 3. Upon cancellation, your entire amount will be maintained in a credit shell and the same may be used to make fresh bookings till February 28, 2021, for the same passenger.”

However, Sabharwal isn’t alone. Neha Mahto, who lives in Noida, and had gone to Kolkata to attend a family function, has been stranded there since March 23. “My return tickets with Air India are scheduled for April 19. I didn’t cancel them because there was no clarity whether flights will operate or not, after April,” Mahto, who works as a process coordinator at a private firm in Noida, said.

She further said that she had contacted the Air India customer helpline which informed her that the booking amount would be reserved against her ticket and could be adjusted against her future bookings after May 3, valid till September. “However, what bothers me is the fact that now we would have to pay the balance amount against the new bookings; there is no waiver for cancellation and all charges would be levied. In the current circumstances, our money is being toyed with. We cannot ask for cancellation, as there is no waiver as well as balance charges are to be paid for new bookings,” she said.

The airlines also took to Twitter to update their flyers about the current situation. In one such tweet, Air India said currently all flight operations are suspended. “We will definitely provide help as and when flight operations resume. Will keep posted with latest updates,” the airline tweeted.

Like Sabharwal and Mahto, Abhay Mishra, 30, who had come to Delhi from Ranchi, on March 24, said he had first booked a return ticket on April 2, which he changed to April 17 after the lockdown was announced. But Mishra is now struggling to get his refund. “Now that all flights have been cancelled, airlines must return money to their customers. What most airlines are doing is they are keeping our money reserved in e-wallets and will allow us to later book tickets using the same money. But it is expected that once the lockdown is lifted, air tickets will get expensive. The money we used today might not suffice for ticket prices after 15 days. The airlines must return the money now,” Mishra, who works at a PSU in Ranchi, said.

While GoAir also said that it is extending the ‘Protect Your PNR’ scheme till May 3, wherein customers are eligible to reschedule their flight for the next year, i.e., until May 3, 2021, none of the four major airlines—SpiceJet, IndiGo, GoAir or Air India—could give the number of bookings they had to cancel between April 15 and May 3, because of the lockdown extension.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the extension of the lockdown on Tuesday, the ministry of civil aviation also tweeted, “All domestic and international scheduled Airlines operations shall remain suspended till 11.59 pm of 3rd May 2020 [sic].”

To inform their travellers, the Delhi airport also took to social media and requested passengers to get in touch with their respective airlines for further information on flights.