Uniform air ticket cancellation charges recommended by Parliamentary committee

The committee questioned the different service providers operating on the same route, same distance of travel, and charging different cancellation charges from the customers

PRAVASISAMWAD.COM

The Parliamentary Standing Committee for Transport, Tourism, and Culture, in its latest report, has suggested the Civil Aviation Ministry to consider regulations to make air ticket cancellation rates uniform in the country. The committee questioned the different service providers operating on the same route, same distance of travel, charging different cancellation charges from the customers.

Suggesting some kind of regulation in the cancellation rates, the standing committee said that the current system “defies all logic” that flights of different airlines on a particular sector have the same starting and destination points, and where the duration of the flight is also the same, should have different cancellation charges.

The standing committee has, therefore, recommended uniform cancellation charges across all airlines. Different airlines using different yardsticks for calculating the cancellation fee has been a matter of debate and complaints for long in the Indian air travel system with no clarity forthcoming from neither the principals nor from the intermediaries like the OTAs and travel agents on the cancellation fee.

The delay ticket refund for cancelled flights during the outbreak of the pandemic had become a bone of contention in the country. It has now gone to the Supreme Court to decide the matter.

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