New Delhi: The Centre’s proposed guidelines mandate air lines and travel agents to immediately refund passengers if they had booked tickets between March 25^th and April 14^th for travel from March 25^th to May 3^rd.

In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court after several rounds of consultations with different airlines, the DGCA informed the Court that for flight tickets booked after April 14^th, airlines and travel agents will get a 15 day window to refund the money as the Civil Aviation requirements say this must be at the convenience of flyers. However, the DGCA provided an alternative to domestic airlines, whose revenues have nose- dived during the pandemic with regard to refunds for tickets booking after April 14^th. If an account of financial distress, airlines is not able to do so, then they shall provide a credit shell equal to the amount of fare collected.

This credit shell shall be issued in the name of the passenger who has booked the ticket, it said. Making the credit shells valid for travel till March 31^st, 2021, on any route of the passengers’ choice, the Civil Aviation Regulator said, if the passenger wants to buy a ticket of value morethan the credit shell, then he/ she can use cash to top it up. If he wants to buy a ticket value less than the credit shell, he/ she can do so and the balance amount of the credit shell shall be available.

For tickets booked on international flights operated by foreign airlines, refund of ticket amount to the passenger has to be made within 15 days as there is no credit shell facility allowed for foreign operators. For money locked in with airlines and travel agents for cancelled flights, the DGCA said the ticket amount in the credit shell shall grow by 0.5% till June 30^th, this year and thereafter by 0.75%/ month till the passenger utilizes the credit shell to buy a ticket till March 31^st 2021. It said the passenger can transfer the credit shell to any person of his choice and the airlines will create a mechanism to effect and honour such a transfer.

However, if a passenger does not use the credit shell till March 31^st, 2021, then the person is entitled to a cash refund of the total amount by the airlines, said DGCA. In case of passenger who died of tickets were booked in flights which were cancelled due to the lock down, airlines would give a full refund to their kin. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had recently told a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R.S. Reddy and M.R. Shah that the DGCA had talked to airlines and was finalizing a proposal, which may not be to the liking of some stake holders. The DGCA consulted representatives of Air India, Go Air, Air India Express, Vistara, Air Asia, Indigo and Spice Jet.

The DGCA said the above proposal was formulated as an exception keeping inview the problems during Covid- 19 and was without prejudice to the regulatory frame work as provided in the Civil Aviation requirements, which recognize the rights of air passengers to seek refund of their tickets. It said CAR was not suspended during the lock down period. The CAR is to protect the passengers so that incase of any violation of the applicable CAR appropriate action can be taken and the violation can be treated as deficiency of service, said DGCA.