The Centre on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court that it can ask concerned airlines to pay a 0.5% interest per month on delayed air ticket refunds.
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The central government added that it was open to considering the interest of “any particular segment of passengers if adversely affected” due to the cancellation of tickets.
Airlines canceled thousands of tickets during the Covid-19 lockdown and kept the money in so-called credit shells.
Vistara and AirAsia opposed the government’s proposal, made during a Supreme Court hearing in a plea seeking a full air ticket refunds, saying most customers prefer credit shells. IndiGo said it has fully refunded the booking amount. GoAir pleaded that many airlines are on the brink of collapse and may shut if the situation doesn’t improve.
In its proposal before a bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan, the government said it is open to considering interest rates of “any particular segment of passengers if adversely affected”.
The court directed the government to file an additional affidavit detailing the refund modes of canceled flights. The case will be heard on Friday.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had earlier filed a supplementary affidavit in the apex court saying that tickets booked during the lockdown period will be immediately refunded. In case of tickets booked prior to the lockdown for flights up till 24 May will be refunded as credit shell.
The affidavit had added that refunds were applicable to passengers of all flights which were canceled, domestic and international.
The plea filed by non-government organization Pravasi Legal Cell claims not refunding the money is illegal and violates the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA’s) requirements.
DGCA filed a supplementary affidavit, clarifying that tickets booked during the lockdown will be immediately refunded. Also, the booking amount for tickets booked prior to the lockdown for flights up to May 24 would be refunded as a credit shell. DGCA also clarified that the refunds were applicable to passengers of all flights which were canceled.
Mean-while, India reported 86,508 new COVID cases in the past 24 hours taking its coronavirus tally past the 57-lakh mark, shows the Health Ministry’s COVID-19 data; the country reported 1,129 deaths in this period. With 87,374 more people having beaten COVID-19, the number of total recoveries remained higher than the number of new infections for the sixth consecutive day, the data shows. The total coronavirus recoveries have crossed 46 lakh. The overall recovery rate in the country is 81.55 percent.
