SpiceJet and Indigo have 3 weeks to respond to an appeal for refund of money for tickets cancelled during lockdown

• A Supreme Court bench led by J. Ashok Bhushan issued notices to the Ministry of Civil Aviation to respond within three weeks.
• It said the Ministry should call a meeting and iron out technicalities.
• Due to the massive number of cancellations during the lockdown, the airlines instead of providing the full refund of the amount collected.

The Supreme Court Friday sought responses from the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Airlines on a plea seeking issues notice in the plea by travel agents specifically seeking a refund of airline tickets due to cancellation of flights in the wake of the lockdown and restrictions imposed to contain COVID-19 pandemic.

The shares of SpiceJet were trading down over 4.5% and the shares of Interglobe Aviation, which operates IndiGo, were down 1.42% on Friday.

A Supreme Court bench led by J. Ashok Bhushan, which heard the matter through video-conferencing, issued notices to the Ministry of Civil Aviation to respond within three weeks and told the Ministry to call a meeting and iron out technicalities.

Due to the massive number of cancellations during the lockdown, the airlines 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.

However, the Civil Aviation Requirement of May 2008 issued by the DGCA clearly states that ‘the option of holding the refund amount in a credit shell by the airlines shall be the prerogative of the passenger and not a default practice of the airline.

The battered airline SpiceJet also submitted their response to the Bench and said that nowhere in the world have airlines been refunding the full fare.

“We would like to sit with the Civil Aviation Ministry and come up with a solution on this issue,” it stated according to Live Law.

SEE ALSO: A GoAir employee nearly lost his job for a hate tweet⁠— but he now says it was an impostor

PM Modi’s new “Air India One” will have advanced defence systems— that and other features of the aircraft