The Civil Aviation Ministry on Thursday said it is deliberating upon forming a set of guidelines on refunds for flight tickets cancellations due to coronavirus lockdown.
As per the Ministry spokesperson, “A video meeting was held with the airline CEOs. The ministry is deliberating (on guidelines). In a nutshell, senior officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and CEOs of Indian airline companies met on Wednesday afternoon on the issue of cancellation refunds during the coronavirus lockdown period.
Several people have been complaining on social media as domestic airlines have decided not to give refunds in cash for canceled flights due to the lockdown and instead issue credit for future travel. These people were claiming based on the reports, that the airlines have again decided not to refund the customers in cash for their canceled flights and instead offer them rescheduling of tickets for a later date without any additional fee.
However, most of the airlines had been taking bookings except national carrier Air India for domestic flights for the period beyond April 14.
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the extension of lockdown till May 3, the aviation regulator DGCA issued a circular stating all international, as well as domestic flights, will remain suspended during the lockdown.
The US had earlier this month directed its airlines to issue refunds to passengers for ticket cancellations done amid the coronavirus pandemic.
India is under a nationwide lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of coronavirus. Earlier, it was 21 days lockdown been imposed across the nation and now, it has been extended till 3 May 2020. Consequently, all domestic and international commercial passenger flights are suspended for this time period.
Meanwhile, the total number of coronavirus cases in India has gone up to 12380 as 941 fresh COVID-19 infections were reported in the past 24 hours. Data from the Health Ministry also showed 37 deaths reported in the past 24 hours, taking the overall toll in India to 414. Meanwhile, 1488 patients have been cured of the virus or discharged. With 2916 COVID-19 cases, Maharashtra is the worst affected state, followed by Delhi (1578), Tamil Nadu (1242), Rajasthan (1023), Madhya Pradesh (987), Gujarat (766), Uttar Pradesh (735) and Telangana (647.
