Harassed by airlines? File complaint with ombudsman!
Air passengers will soon be able to file complaints with an ombudsman on any issues that they face right from the time of booking a flight to the end of the journey.
The Government of India (GoI) has said that an ombudsman will be set up to resolve grievances of air passengers which they face due to any issue related to any party concerned with travel industry. Once the ombudsman is established, passengers will be able to file complaints on any issues that they have faced right from the time of booking an air ticket to the end of the journey.
Just like citizens can file a complaint with a banking ombudsman if they have any complaints with the bank, similarly, they will be able to file complaints with ombudsman in travel industry on having any issue be it with airlines, online travel portals and agencies. Till now, the travel industry in India didn’t have an ombudsman. Passengers could only file a complaint on facing any issue with any party from the travel industry. They only had the option of filing complaint with helpline number of respective airlines or with government of India’s airline issues grievances portal ‘Air Sewa’.
The government has also pulled up online travel aggregators and agencies on non-refund of air tickets booked during Covid-19 lockdown period in 2020. The government has directed the aggregators and agencies to refund tickets within the third week of Novembner.
It is worth mentioning that the Supreme Court had on October 1, 2020, passed a judgment that all online travel aggregators and agencies must refund air tickets for those passengers who had booked journey within the lockdown period for air travel within that period itself. The GoI had imposed nationwide lockdown on March 24, 2020, to curb rising cases of Covid-19 cases in the country.
Following the apex court’s judgment, many aggregators and portals had started refund process but lot many others have kept the process pending. Sighting laxity, the government has now asked portals to refund within November third week.
These online travel aggregators are EaseMyTrip, Yatra, MakeMyTrip, HappyEasyGo, ClearTrip and. Ixigo. While, the agencies are Thomas Cook, Kesari Tours, Veena World, Neem Holidays and Mango Holidays.
Both these decisions will be a big relief for all those who have had tough time flying with the country’s airlines.
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