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Mumbai Grahak Panchayat sheds light on their new survey in regards to flight ticket refunds

Shirish Deshpande, Chairperson of the MGP, answers questions on consumer body e-survey on flight ticket refunds.

Mumbai Grahak Panchayat sheds light on their new survey in regards to flight ticket refunds
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The people of Mumbai have faced massive disappointment as the flight board showcased several flights being cancelled on May 25, 2020. The Indian carriers further decided that the payment will be held in credit for a year and will not be refunded. This enraged the passengers as the choice to keep their payment with the airline in a credit or to seek a refund solely remains with them.

The team of Mumbai Live spoke to Shirish Deshpande, the Chairperson of Mumbai Grahak Panchayat (MGP), a consumer rights body to understand the implications of this decision. The MGP is also slated to conduct a survey which will help them to understand the needs and expectations of the consumers regarding the refunds. Deshpande also added that travel agents can take part in this survey.

How do think this survey will help the MGP to understand the needs of the consumers?

Basically, we know that there are people who are unhappy. There are airlines who have offered coupons and all. Somebody is saying that the money will be refunded in six months, someone is saying it will take a year. Now, there are no clear cut guidelines from the government, the civil administration particularly. The guidelines which came were again vague. We have replied to that as well, however, the administration has not responded as of now. We actually want to see and understand all the problems. In these circumstances, it is not possible for us to move out and directly take feedback from the consumers so we thought of an online survey where we are trying to reach out to the maximum number of people.

Who do you think should be liable for this situation?

Through this survey, some people contacted us stating that they had booked through the web portal. The airlines, when they were contacted, stated that they had already refunded the money to the web portal so now it is between the passenger and the web portal. The web portal, on the other hand, is stating that they will not give the money back but will give a voucher instead which the passenger can use within a period of time. So, there are different things that are coming out of this. See, we also understand that airlines are having difficulties. For two months they have not operated. As a consequence, there is zero revenue. So airlines in a way are not to be blamed but at the same time, you cannot blame the passengers either.

What do you think about the grievances of the passengers?

If a passenger says that he or she wants a refund only then the question comes to if the airlines will start giving out refunds. Some of the airlines have also told us that if they start giving out refunds they will go bankrupt. In a way, this is blackmailing at the cost of the passengers. Whose money are you using? And that money was actually meant for operational reasons. Now you have not operated, we understand that you have to pay the salaries of the existing employees but for that purpose, you have to arrange for the money. If you want to use this opportunity for easy money, then you should take the passengers into confidence. Maybe to frequent flyers, they could initiate some new initiatives, known as credit shell. So this is what we want to represent to the government to understand the difficulties of all of them, not just the airlines.

What do you think should be the government’s response to these fund management schemes adopted by various private air carriers?

The government has all the stakeholders. The airlines, the agents, web portals, and consumer bodies. The government should bring them on one table. Maybe today you cannot bring them on one table but you can bring them on one screen. So, there should be talking about it in order to find out an amicable solution to issue a guideline. Then that has to be respected by all the airlines, all the passengers, which will help avoid unnecessary litigation. Otherwise, each airline will be left to their whims and fancies which will bring about unnecessary litigation into the course which we should try to avoid. We will take this up once our survey gets over on Saturday.




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