[Airfare Refunds] Flight Booking Made Before Lockdown Eligible For Refund, Credit Shell Incentives: DGCA Tells SC

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has clarified that it shall be requisite upon domestic carriers to provide full refund on air tickets which were booked prior to lockdown, for travel up to May 24, on all national and international routes.

The affidavit has been filed in PLs before top court seeking refund of flights cancelled during lockdown. The case is listed for further hearing on the top court wherein a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and MR Shah will listen.

On the last date of hearing, the bench had sought the centre’s response on the issue of refunds of airfare and furnishes details on whether the credit shell and incentives scheme formulated by centre extended just to tickets booked during lockdown or the period prior to it as well.

The DGCA has categorized the passengers in three categories:

1. For those who made bookings prior to lockdown for a period up till May 24, the refund would be governed by the credit shell scheme and the incentives there under.
2. For booking made during lockdown for traveling during lockdown, refund shall be made by airlines immediately “as the airlines were not supposed to book such tickets.
3. For booking that were made for traveling in dates after May 24, the refund would be governed by the Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR).

The plea also states that airline companies should be showing humanitarian virtues rather than using the challenging times as an opportunity to extract unlawful gains from the people who are already in misery.

The petitioner also earmarks the rationale to this by stating that the question of anyone booing a ticket during the lockdown does not arise since passenger flights had already been cancelled and that this makes the Officer Memorandum dated April 16 ambiguous and devoid of any logic whatsoever.