SC: Devise way to refund flyers for cancelled flights

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to think of a mechanism to refund ticket money to passengers left to fend for themselves when airlines abruptly cancel flights, often attributing it to technical snags. A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R S Reddy and M R Shah told this to solicitor general Tushar Mehta while examining the Centre’s proposal on refunding ticket cost to passengers for cancelled flights during the lockdown period.
When some counsel raised the issue of the Centre confining refunds to tickets booked from March 25 for flights cancelled during the lockdown period, Mehta clarified that it did not matter when the tickets were booked, whether before March 25 or later. “What matters is when was the flight cancelled. If a passenger had a valid ticket for a flight which was cancelled during the lockdown period, then he is entitled to refund,” he said.
While asking the SG to instruct the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to put this clarification in an affidavit, the bench said, “The proposal is with regard to the lockdown period. But on many occasions, flights are suddenly cancelled with the airlines attributing it to a snag... How can they be told that their ticket money would be put in a credit shell,” Mehta said the DGCA would file necessary clarification on this issue.