A majority of international carriers have ‘in principle’ agreed to process refunds on overseas bookings made through online portals and travel agents on a staggered basis, following a series of video-conferencing calls and pressure from the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA).
While the Centre has asked the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to detail the overall refund quantum, a timeline that could range from as little as 15 days to 2 months depending on the airline and date of travel waits to be drawn up. The delay, trade agents said, was because airlines were based in different parts of the world. The refunds would be processed in a staggered manner, said airlines.
“Due to the travel restrictions placed by governments across the world, customers/travellers want to cancel their bookings and claim back refunds for tickets booked by them,” Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) vice-president Jay Bhatia said. “Travellers want their blocked money back for the unutilised travel, which shall not be undertaken by them. The good news is that now airlines have agreed to it and we are awaiting their individual timelines in this regard,” he added.
Singapore Airlines, which confirmed a refund, would be effecting a staggered payment. Under this, for example, refunds would be processed at the end of the following month — April bookings would be refunded in May end. Emirates has come out with a circular, which spells out that refunds would be processed from as little as 15 to 20 days to up to 2 months. Lufthansa and Delta too have agreed to making refunds, while Cathay Pacific has said it would initiate the process immediately. Talks are still on with Malaysian Airlines over the issue.
In a series of calls with the government and individually with international airlines, both TAAI and Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) had pointed out that the travel agents and tour operators had paid 100% to the airlines, for all tickets that had been issued, till date.
“Our member agents are wanting to process the refunds , for the tickets issued by them for their customers, but majority of IATA member airlines, have disabled the refunding mechanism on the global distribution systems (GDS) for agents,” TAAI president Jyoti Mayal said.
“Agents are now required to manually process refunds through the Refund Authority with IATA, whereby the airlines are being non-committal on the date and amount of repayment of airfare. Most Low-Cost Carriers too are not refunding the airfares and are creating a credit shell favouring the passenger, to be used for future dates,” she added.
The domestic players, have refused to refund customers whose flights either got cancelled due to the suspension of all commercial passenger flights in the wake of the 21-day lockdown, or because of the visa and travel restrictions by various countries or because the travellers themselves cancelled tickets on account of pandemic concerns.
On Tuesday, domestic carriers further extended the credit shell till May 3 without any refund option to passengers during the lockdown period. The credit shell can be used by the same flyer up to a particular later date, that is airline subjective. IndiGo has told travel agents that it would release money in float accounts. These accounts consist of advances made to low-cost carriers. IndiGo is expected to hold an online board meeting to discuss the travel agents demands. SpiceJet too is scheduled to discuss the issue.
According to TAAI, most low-cost domestic carriers are not refunding the airfares and are creating a credit shell favouring the passenger, to be used for future dates. TAAI said it has raised strong objections on this issue with the airlines along with IATA and has asked MoCA to direct the airlines to refund all money during a conference call with secretary, MoCA, Pradeep Singh Kharola.
“We are working closely with IATA on a daily basis to find a suitable solution, to resolve the refund issue, in the interest of the passenger, along with support from Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH),” Mr. Bhatia said.
