Circular- updated status on air ticket refund

To: All IAAI Members and Trade & Media Partners
Dear All,

Greetings from IAAI. It’s been an incredibly tough year as the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted lives and livelihoods worldwide. The pandemic is still affecting the whole world and has temporarily brought India to a near standstill.

Since the outbreak of coronavirus disease in 2019 (COVID-19), more than 1 million people have lost their lives due to the pandemic. The global economy expected to contract by a staggering 4.3 per cent in 2020. Millions of jobs have already lost, millions of livelihoods are at risk, and an estimated additional 130 million people will be living in extreme poverty if the crisis persists.

In the Indian scenario, most travel trade offices remain closed, and some partially opened. Though not yet fully functional, we, the travel trade must thank Hon. Supreme Court of India for the remarkable Judgment for making the air ticket refund possible to our valued passengers for their flights cancelled or not operated due to travel restrictions, cancellation or airport closure due to the Coronavirus, Cocid-19 pandemic and also should appreciate the proactive steps taken by Government of India & DGCA for appropriate implementation of the Judgment in its true spirit.

As per media quoting, the Ministry of Civil Aviation reported that 74.3% passengers received full reimbursement on their tickets and accordingly, Rupees 3200 Crores dispersed against 55,23,940 PNR cancellations. Simultaneously, as per the passengers’ option, Airlines are holding 2,06,119 credit shells worth Rupees 219 Crores, permissible to re-sue/re-issue before 31st March or 31st December 2021, depending on the policy of the carriers.

It was a victory of Travel Agents fraternity who stood together to protect their customers’ interests and rights in getting refund amount over the cancelled tickets when Airlines collectively refused. We at IAAI would like to express our sincere thanks to Adv Jose Abraham – Advocate on Record of the Supreme Court of India and the President of Pravasi Legal Cell, for making IAAI to Implead in the case against airlines’ arbitrary decisions. Thus, IAAI turns out to be the first Travel Trade Association as a party in the Writ Petition before the Hon. Supreme Court of India regarding Airline ticket refund issue, and afterwards other associations followed IAAI. We are also thankful to Adv. Ajith Marath, our Advisory Member of “IAAI Passenger Rights Forum” for his contributions in this cause. We further express our gratitude to every member agents, passengers, Travel Journals and other Media for their wholehearted support for IAAI’s Nationwide Signature Campaign in this regard.

IAAI’s Nationwide Signature Campaign’s most significant success is that we could make our beloved travelling public understand the value and virtue of Travel Agencies during difficult times and understand how they legally protected by the provisions of India Government’s Passengers Charter of 2019. Again, again and again, it reminds us of a lesson that, ” if there were unity amongst the Travel Trade fraternity, Airlines would not have dared to take such arbitrary decisions unilaterally”.

Air travel is slowly picking up again worldwide after a challenging period of almost complete lock down. That should not be a reason for airlines to slow down the refund payment of 26% pending reimbursement. It is the hard-earned money of the travelling public, and IAAI request Government authorities to take necessary steps to make the complete reimbursement before 31st March 2020 as directed by Hon. Supreme Court of India.

There will almost certainly be a travel recovery early next year as our Industry faced and survived similar challenges more before, like the 9/11 attack, 2008 recession, SARS and NIPA. Even though nobody can predict what will happen, one thing is sure that we won’t be able to travel as freely as before. A new style of travel with masks, sanitizers, and social distancing expected for the foreseeable future.

And let us pray for a speedy recovery of the Travel & Tourism Industry in the New Year 2021