Air India offers transferable tickets – allows passengers to change the name on the booking for a flight cancelled due to lockdown

• Air India said that all passengers will be allowed to change the name on tickets for flights that were cancelled between March 15 and August 24 due to coronavirus lockdown.
• This is in addition to its previous waiver policy dated June 17, which allowed passengers for one free change in travel date without any additional charges.
• But the airline also listed various rules for passengers who wish to transfer the tickets.

Air India now allows passengers to change names on the tickets for all flights that were cancelled between March 15 and August 24 due to the coronavirus lockdown. With this tickets booked during the said period, are now transferable.

The airline said this is in addition to its previous waiver policy dated June 17, which allowed passengers for one free change in travel date without any additional charges.

“The value of the existing ticket will be locked, and passengers will be allowed to get the ticket reissued for a new passenger nominated by him/her, allowing him freedom from the limitation of self-travel only for a future date,” the circular said.

In its earlier policy, Air India said that the “passengers will be allowed to adjust the value of the existing ticket against the new fare.” This means, if the passenger wants to change travel to a different city from the points of origin, they will be allowed to do so; however, they will have to bear the change in the new fare.

“The booking must be done before December 31, 2021, and the journey must also be completed latest by December 31,” it added.

“No re-issuance charges will be levied,” the circular said.

Air India listed out various rules in its circular for passengers that wish to change their name on tickets:

• It will only be allowed for domestic travel tickets issued in India.
• The facility will only be available through Air India city booking offices.
• Currently, the name change policy is restricted only to 6 metro cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Chennai.
• This scheme will cover tickets that are bought with cash or credit card only.
• No partial or reissued tickets should be considered as it may complicate the process.

According to reports, Air India would have unused tickets worth over ₹500 crore value, and almost 70-80% people would have opted for refunds, as per the first refund policy issued by the airline. Due to the massive number of cancellations during the lockdown, other airlines in India instead of providing the full refund of the amount collected for the tickets due to cancellation started offering credit shells, valid up to one year.

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