Big relief for flyers! Guidelines on refunds for flight ticket cancellations during the lockdown period have been issued! After a nationwide lockdown had been announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, operations of all domestic and international flights were suspended. This led to the cancellations of many flight tickets. According to a recent notification by the Civil Aviation Ministry, the airlines have to give full refunds for all the flight tickets that have been cancelled for the lockdown period. All the refunds have to be made within three weeks of cancellation, the Ministry notification said. However, one will only get the full refund if he or she fulfils the below-mentioned criteria for getting a full refund from the airline companies.

Criteria for getting refund for flight ticket cancellation:

  • A full refund will be given to those who had booked their flight tickets for the first phase of lockdown from March 25 to April 14. If the airlines had received the payment and the ticket was cancelled for the period due to lockdown, a passenger can seek complete refund without cancellation charge being levied.
  • Those who had booked the tickets for the period between April 15 and May 3 which is the second phase of lockdown, they will also get a complete refund on the cancelled flight ticket. This applies if the airlines had received the payments for the cancelled trips during the first phase of lockdown. If applicable, the passenger will be refunded the amount with no levy of cancellation charge.

The decision has come after there have been many complaints by people on social media handles as the airlines had earlier decided not to give people refunds. According to statements made by several air passenger carriers, people were told that they will not be getting any refunds for cancellations during lockdown but they could get their tickets rescheduled for the next trip post lockdown. They also said that people will not be charged any additional fee for rescheduling the tickets. In India, the flights operations have been suspended for all commercial purposes from March 24, 2020.