Not many passengers knew that the UK Authorities have exempted people upto the age of 16 to pay air passenger duty(APD) since March 16,2016 which was earlier restricted to 12 years.
The above exemption results in a waiver of approx Rs.7500 for an economy class travel between London to India which is included in the ticket price which has resulted in many of the passengers, mostly students, ending up paying higher fares though the discount is believed to have been claimed and applied on their tickets, by the travel agents.
The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has claimed that airlines did not inform them about this. The agents have also demanded refunds for customers. This wouldn’t have come into the limelight and may have remained concealed for a longer time until a customer complained about this clause to an agent in April 2017.
Air India, Jet Airways, British Airways (BA) and Virgin Atlantic (VA) operate non-stop flights between India and London. There are also other airlines like Emirates and Etihad Airways which operates flights on this rout.
“There has been no circular from your airline to travel agents informing about this tax exemption. Neither have any procedures been informed to collect the tax refund for passengers. It is quite clear that mechanisms exist with the global distribution systems used by agents for ticketing to deduct this tax at the time of ticketing. However, no efforts have been made on that front either,” the TAFI said in a letter to airlines.
30/05/17 Sarath Babu/News Patrolling
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The above exemption results in a waiver of approx Rs.7500 for an economy class travel between London to India which is included in the ticket price which has resulted in many of the passengers, mostly students, ending up paying higher fares though the discount is believed to have been claimed and applied on their tickets, by the travel agents.
The Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) has claimed that airlines did not inform them about this. The agents have also demanded refunds for customers. This wouldn’t have come into the limelight and may have remained concealed for a longer time until a customer complained about this clause to an agent in April 2017.
Air India, Jet Airways, British Airways (BA) and Virgin Atlantic (VA) operate non-stop flights between India and London. There are also other airlines like Emirates and Etihad Airways which operates flights on this rout.
“There has been no circular from your airline to travel agents informing about this tax exemption. Neither have any procedures been informed to collect the tax refund for passengers. It is quite clear that mechanisms exist with the global distribution systems used by agents for ticketing to deduct this tax at the time of ticketing. However, no efforts have been made on that front either,” the TAFI said in a letter to airlines.
30/05/17 Sarath Babu/News Patrolling
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