India’s domestic airlines routinely deny boarding to thousands of passengers for which they had bought tickets — and the incidence of overbooked flights is rising sharply.
American carrier United Airlines, earlier this week, dragged a passenger off their plane like after overbooking its Chicago to Louisville flight and aviation experts said its a legal practice followed by the transportation sector globally. A video of the passenger being dragged off the plane went viral on the Internet drawing ire from across the world.
In the 7-month period between August 2016 and February 2017, 12,957 passengers on domestic Indian flights were not allowed to board their flights – a 65.75% increase compared to the same period a year earlier.
That such incidents are going up alarmingly indicates that airlines haven’t been deterred by a Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)’s directive last August, steeply increasing the compensation they need to pay for denying boarding to booked passengers.
Jet Airways accounted for the highest proportion of cases related to boarding denial at 84%, followed by Air India with 11.1% of such cases from August 2016-February 2017, after the higher compensation regulation kicked in.
Ticket refund
Indian airlines has offered refund for ticket, hotel accommodation, alternative flights and monetary compensation to passengers for denying boarding. Many airlines in India and globally tend to issue confirmed bookings to more passengers than the number of seats available on a flight in anticipation of a few ticket cancellations and to reduce the possibility of departing with empty seats. Airlines may deny boarding even in cases when passengers may be holding confirmed bookings for travel on the flight.
“This is a global practice followed by the transportation sector. In India, even the Indian Railways follows this concept by issuing reservation against cancellation (RAC) and wait-listed tickets to passengers,” said Mark D Martin, Founder and CEO of Martin Consulting.
In India, the airlines first check with passengers who are interested in voluntarily taking the next flight in exchange of some incentives. In case that doesn’t work, airlines deny boarding to passengers at the check-in counter and they are liable to compensation of up to ₹20,000.
Compensation
However, airlines are not liable for compensation, as per DGCA rules, in case another flight is arranged within an hour of the original scheduled departure.
An AirAsia India spokesperson said the airline decides the number of seats to be overbooked on a flight based on historical flight data, “without causing inconvenience to guests and is carried out in compliance with the regulatory body.”
“We do not overbook as a practice, however, if we were to run into an overbook situation due to unplanned schedule disruption, we would accommodate customers in order of check-in. As the DGCA reports indicate, we have the lowest denied boarding rate in India, which is predominantly zero,” said a Vistara spokesperson.
“Domestic airlines deny boarding at the check-in counter. Government should formulate guidelines not to allow such incidents taking place in India,” said D. Sudhakara Reddy, national president of Air Passengers Association of India.
