CHENNAI: Five months after denying them a refund, a private airline has now asked a mother-son duo to pay rescheduling charges for postponing their travel due to lockdown. On March 22, Anuradha (35) and her 3-year-old child booked a ticket on an Air Vistara flight from Delhi to Chennai.
The flight was cancelled following the lockdown announcement, and the airline refused to refund the ticket amount. Instead they provided a credit shell valid up to one year. Following the credit shell assurance, they postponed the travel to June 27 hoping that the crisis would have eased off by then, Anuradha’s father RM Kapur said.
“But the lockdown continued and we again rescheduled the itinerary to August 26. Now, however, we fear whether it is safe for the child to wear a mask continuously for 5 hours, and want to travel on a later date,” he added. The airline is now demanding rescheduling charges from Anuradha. “Vistara is fleecing passengers in these difficult times. They are sitting over our money for over five months and now want even more,” Kapur said.
Air Vistara spokesperson told Express that, “This was a booking through a travel agent but Vistara had directly given two free reschedules to the customer before initiating a full refund.”. Meanwhile, it is learnt that the Supreme Court had asked the Central government and airline to discuss modalities for full refund of tickets of flights that were cancelled following the lockdown announcement.
Plea in SC
A petition has been moved in the SC, stating that instead of providing full refund, airlines are offering credit shell, which is in violation of Civil Aviation Requirement of May 2008.