Air ticket cancellation: Here’s how fliers are placed

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It is needless to say that for a virus that has disrupted the whole of mankind on earth, air travel was set to be a major casualty. Due to the restrictions to contain the exposure of coronavirus, many had to cancel or reschedule their travel plans. Those who had pre-booked their flight tickets were either forced to cancel or reschedule it. So what happened after the customers cancelled their tickets? Did they get any refund or alternative choice from the airline or travel agent? LocalCircles, a community social media platform conducted a survey to understand the issues faced by customers when they opted for flight ticket cancellation and refund. A lot of people had even reported harassment and lack of clarity on their refunds from the airlines.

Frame an air ticket cancellation policy

According to LocalCircles’ survey, approximately 90% of people who have faced some or other issue in getting a full refund for cancelled travel bookings of flights during Covid-19, want the government to formulate a pandemic-specific cancellation refund policy. Over 10,633 respondents who participated in the survey said yes to the question that the government should come up with a policy for air travel cancellation during Covid-19.

Only 12% received a full refund

As per the survey, out of the 8,713 respondents, only 12-13% of those who cancelled flight tickets due to the second Covid wave could get timely and full refunds. While a whopping 32% said they did not receive any refund and lost the whole ticket price.

About 12% of respondents said travel agent or airline accepted cancellation but refunded partial amount, and 4% said they got only a small amount as refund.  There was also 24% of citizens who said travel agent or airline did not refund anything but rebooked the ticket for a later date.

Taking the stock of this situation and preventing citizens from further harassment, the survey stresses the need for the government to take a policy measure and come up with a cancellation policy that applies to airlines, railways, hotels, and others.