All flight tickets booked between March 25 and May 3 will be ‘fully refunded’: DGCA to SC

The Director-General of Civil Aviation on Sunday informed the Supreme Court that all flight tickets booked by travelers in domestic and international airlines for travel between March 25 to May 3 this year will be ‘fully refunded’. The DGCA also told that if carriers cannot reimburse the ticket fares, flyers will get a credit shell up to March 31, 2021.

Earlier, the supreme court had reviewed a petition with respect to a full refund of booked air tickets during the first two phases of coronavirus lockdown and sought the Centre’s views on the same.

“Passengers can transfer the credit shell to any person, and the airlines shall honour such a transfer. The airlines shall devise a mechanism to facilitate such a transfer. By the end of March 2021, the Airlines shall refund cash to the holder of the credit shell,” reports the NDTV quoting the Union Government .

The Civil Aviation Ministry in April had instructed all airlines to issue a full refund to customers asking cancellation of tickets due to coronavirus lockdown within a period of 3 weeks from date of request.

Many flyers had raised their concern when domestic airlines decided not to refund them in cash for their cancelled flights and instead issue credit for future travel.