Booked a flight? Pray the airline stays afloat

New Delhi: Cautious passengers who have bought tickets way in advance for a domestic carrier must keep their fingers crossed that the airline does not fold before their date of travel.
For while record oil prices and mounting losses have dented the airline industry worldwide, India — unlike the west — does not have any consumer protection law in place to protect passengers who hold the ticket of a company that has shut down. Invariably, they will have to queue up behind bigger creditors and wait for some kind of a refund. The crisis has hit home, with government and industry waking up to potential shutdowns. Aviation secretary Ashok Chawla said the government would examine procedures for ticket refunds in other countries before arriving at a solution. Kingfisher EVP Hitesh Patel said he would take up the issue in the next industry meeting.
Usually, if a passenger holds a ticket of an airline which gets consolidated with some other carrier, s/he is allowed to travel on the merged entity. The problem arises if the airline goes belly up. "If an airline goes out of business in the US, other airlines, as a goodwill gesture, offer to carry such passengers on highly discounted rates. In India, we don’t have any such practice. We’ll raise this issue at the next industry meeting," said Patel. Flyers now booking tickets closer to departure date.
13/07/08 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Jul 2008