The US Department of Transportation could slap a penalty of $1.4 million on the Tata Group-owned Air India for ‘extreme delays’ in providing refunds. This penal action follows enforcement actions by the body against the carrier to pay $121.5 million to passengers seeking refunds due to flight cancellations or significantly changed flights.

The US body is assessing more than $7.5 million in civil penalties against six airlines for extreme delays in providing refunds. A majority of the assessed fines will be collected in the form of payments to the treasury department, with the remainder credited on the basis of payments to passengers beyond the legal requirement.

The cases pertaining to refunds by Air India predates the takeover of the airline by the Tata Group, which happened earlier this year.

“Air India confirms that it has received a fine pertaining to delayed refunds, which mostly pertains to the pandemic period during which Air India was a publicly-owned entity. We very much regret that customers were inconvenienced and accept the fine,” Air India said in a statement.

Since Air India was privatised in January 2022, every effort has been made to clear all backlogged refunds, with more than 250,000 cases totalling $18.30 million successfully processed. New systems have also been implemented to expedite the processing of refunds which are now turned around, on an average, within a week. We have publicly invited anyone who feels they have a refund due from Air India to contact us, the airline added.

Also read: Volta Trucks, Cake electric motorcycles collaborate for last mile electric mobile micro hubs

According to an official investigation, Air India took more than 100 days to process more than half of the 1,900 refund complaints filed with the US body for flights that the carrier cancelled or significantly changed, PTI reported.

The six airlines have collectively refunded more than $600 million, the department claimed. In addition to Air India, the other airlines that were slapped fines are Frontier, TAP Portugal, Aero Mexico, EL AL, and Avianca.