(Image source from: thestatesman.com)

The Directorate general of Civil aviation issued guidelines for refund on air tickets during the lockdown period.

The DGCA on Wednesday announced a detailed set of guidelines for a refund of fare on flight tickets that were booked during the lockdown period in India.

The regulatory guidelines were released based on the directions from the Supreme Court.

The DGCA has categorised the refund seekers into 3 categories and has issued different guidelines for each of them.

Category 1

Passengers who have booked the tickets during the lockdown to travel during the same period from March 25 to May 24, 2020 will come under this category.

If an airline has received the payment from this category of passengers for the domestic or international travel, the airline will refund full amount without any cancellation charges within three months from the date of cancellation.

If the tickets have been booked with the help of a travel agent, full amount shall be refunded to that travel agent.

This amount shall be immediately passed on to the respective passengers.

Both Indian and foreign airlines will have to refund the full amount to the category 1 passengers.

Category 2

Passengers who have booked the flight tickets before the lockdown had been enforced and the date of travel lies before May 24 come under this category.

Airlines will make all the efforts to refund the collected amount to the passengers within 15 days starting from October 7, 2020.

If any airline shall not be able to do so due to the financial distress, it will provide a credit shell to the passengers with which the passengers can book their next air ticket using the amount.

This amount shall be equal to the fare collected by the airline.

The credit shell will be issued to the one who has booked the ticket and will be valid up to March 21, 2021.

Based on the Supreme Court directives, the DGCA has advised the airlines to incentivise all the credit shells.

The credit shell can be enhanced by 0.5 percent for every month between the date of cancellation and June 30 this year.

From there, the credit shell can be enhanced by o.75 percent for the passengers till March 31, 2021.

Category 3

Passengers who booked their tickets for their journey after May 24, 2020 come under this category.

Normal refund rules as applicable by the DGCA shall be applied to the passengers for both domestic and international flights.

There would be certain cancellation amount that would be deducted for this category of passengers.

By Gayatri Yellayi