Ombudsman in the sky: Civil aviation ministry to discuss need with stakeholders

What attracted the attention of consumer affairs secretary Rohit Kumar Singh in November 2023 is snowballing into a serious brainstorming between bosses of airlines, airport authorities and regulators to discuss whether the Indian civil aviation sector needs an ombudsman to settle consumer grievances. The Business Standard has reported that the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) is planning a shortly to explore the need to institutionalise such a need and document the opinion of every stakeholder in the matter. Incidentally, the government has launched a portal AirSewa to handle passenger grievances.

The ministry under the stewardship of Jyotiraditya Scindia has already shot off letters to airlines, airport authorities, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security to submit their opinion in writing, an official told the newspaper on conditions of anonymity.

“The MoCA will call a meeting to compile the views of stakeholders and review the proposal. Since the MoCA already has AirSewa (helpline) to address grievances of air passengers, we will examine in detail the value addition that an ombudsman mechanism will bring about,” the spokesperson of MoCA told Business Standard.

The Union consumer affairs secretary shot off a letter to aviation secretary Vumiunmang Vuainam, bringing to his notice the fact that airlines were charging separately for seat selection during web check-in. The consumer affairs secretary highlighted that offering free mandatory web check-in and subsequently charging for seat selection amounted to misleading the consumer and ‘unfair trade practice under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019″.

Rohit Kumar Singh also suggested that the MoCA “may also like to consider setting up an ombuds men similar to electricity ombudsman and insurance ombudsman, to ensure a timebound resolution of consumer issues within the airline sector and the need for the same was also strongly advocated by representatives from travel platforms and consumer organisations”.

The civil aviation secretary wrote back on November 30. He said that any move to set up the office of an ombudsman in the sector should only follow a “thorough examination” of the matter by all the stakeholders. He also remarked that airlines could charge separately for preferential allotment of seats to passengers.

Two days before writing the letter to his civil aviation counterpart, the Union consumer affairs secretary met online travel aggregators to discuss issues affecting consumer interest in the travel sector. He had also told platforms to expedite refunds to consumers pertaining to the period of lockdown.

Another suggestion that emanated from the November 8 meeting was that the National Consumer Helpline could be integrated with the AirSewa portal for effective redressal of consumer grievances. The need for an ombudsman in the aviation sector was also mooted in this meeting.

In his letter, the consumer affairs secretary also underscored another concern. It was about airlines withholding refund of tickets booked for travel between March 25, 2020, and May 24, 2020. This was the time window when the Union government had stopped all commercial passenger flights due to the lockdown. Rohit Singh told Vuainam that airlines did not comply with a Supreme Court order in October 2020 that directed airlines to fully refund tickets during the abovementioned period of lockdown and numerous passenger complaints were still lying unresolved.