Plea In SC Seeks Full Refund Of Tickets For Cancelled Flights Booked Prior To & During Lockdown

A fresh PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking orders to the Central Government and Directore General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for issuance of appropriate directions to Airlines for full refund of tickets booked for travel during the lockdown on account of their cancellation.

The petition has been filed by Pravasi Legal Cell on behalf of Advocate Jose Abraham and highlights that the action of non-refund by airlines of the full amount collected for tickets due to cancellation is "arbitrary and in violation of the Civil Aviation Requirement issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation".

Moreover, the petitioner has averred that instead of providing full refund of the amount collected, the action of Airlines of providing mandatory "Credit Shell" is in clear violation of the DGCA requirements according to which the optionn of refund is "the preogative of the passenger and not a default practice of the Airline"

The plea states that the direction by the Government that refunding in full, only those who had booked tickes during lockdown and leaving out those who booked tickets prior to the lockdown, even though flights were cancelled is antithetical to basic Constitutional tenets.

The petitioner points out that,

"BECAUSE the office memorandum dt. 16.04.2020 of the Ministry of Aviation directing the Airlines to provide full refund of amount paid to only to those people who booked tickets during the lock down period and leaving out people who booked tickets prior to lockdown but the flights cancelled due to lockdown amounts to treating equals unequally and thus the same is in clear violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution."

Furthermore, the plea states that airline companies should be showing "humanitarian virtues" rather than using the "challenging times as an opportunity to extract unlawful gains from prople who are already in misery"

The petitioner also earkmarks the rationale to this by stating that the question of anyone booking a ticket during the lockdown does not arise since passenger flights had already been cancelled and that this makes the Officer Memorandum dated April 16 "ambiguos" and "devoid of any logic" whatsoever.

The mandate of the Civil Aviation requirements is also laid down in the petition according to which, "if the payment is through a credit card, refund shall be made by the airlines within seven days of the cancellation to the account of the creditcard holder, while in the case of a cash transaction the refund shall be made immediately, by the airline office from where the ticket was purchased".