Relief for flyers as airlines drop Rs 3,000 cancellation fee ahead of holiday season

NEW DELHI: Cancellation charges for ‘cheap’ domestic air tickets will no longer be a flat Rs 3,000. Indian airlines say their domestic cancellation charges will be “Rs 3,000 or base fare plus fuel surcharge per passenger, whichever is lower.” This will provide relief to those who manage to buy cheap air tickets, mostly by buying in advance, but ended up losing a lot of money while cancelling them if unable to travel for some reason. However, domestic travellers, whose base fare and fuel surcharges combined is more than Rs 3,000, will continue paying that as cancellation fee.The change in rule comes after aviation minister Jayant Sinha recently voiced concern over the flat Rs 3,000 domestic cancellation fee being too high. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation DGCA ) then wrote to airlines, asking them to provide data on cancellation charges as rules do not allow the same to be more than the sum of base fare and fuel surcharge.While websites of most earlier airlines listed a flat cancellation fee of Rs 3,000, this policy has now being tweaked in accordance with the DGCA rule.Titled “refund of airline tickets to passengers of public transport undertakings”, the rule effective from August 1, 2016, says: “The issue of refund of tickets by airlines has become a major source of grievance amongst airline passengers. A large number of complaints are regularly received which can broadly be divided into the following categories: a) Delay in refund. b) Amount refunded. c) Policy of no refund of the ticket amount but to adjust against tickets to be purchased by the passenger for future travel…”