Nagpur/New Delhi: In what is believed to be a major relief to flyers, domestic airlines will no longer charge Rs 3000 flat cancellation of a flight ticket. As per reports, airlines will now charge “Rs 3,000 or base fare plus fuel surcharge per passenger, whichever is lower instead of that flat cancellation amount. This move comes soon after Civil aviation minister Jayant Sinha raised his concern over the flat Rs 3,000 as cancellation fee saying that it is too high. According to a PTI report, domestic travellers, whose base fare and fuel surcharges combined is more than Rs 3,000, will continue paying that as a cancellation fee.
While websites of most airlines earlier listed a flat cancellation fee of Rs 3,000, the policy has now been altered in accordance with the DGCA rule. Earlier, the DGCA had told airlines that cancellation fee should not be more than the sum of the base fare and fuel surcharge. After the rap, airlines have said they will now charge Rs 3,000 only for cancellation of tickets whose base fare and fuel surcharge together add up to Rs 3,000. The ‘Refund of Airline Tickets to Passengers of Public Transport Undertakings’ rule came into effect from 1 August 2016. It says: “The issue of refund of tickets by airlines has become a major source of grievance amongst airline passengers,” according to a newsmedia report.
Sinha said, “We believe cancellation charges are on the high side and onerous for passengers. The Rs 3,000 fee is in many cases more than the price of the ticket itself”. “Our UDAN (subsidised regional flying) scheme has capped fares at Rs 2,500 per hour of flying. These cancellation charges need to be brought back into balance,” Sinha added.
