India
CCPA asks online platforms to refund air tickets of people who couldn’t travel during Covid | India News
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NEW DELHI: The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has directed three online travel platforms — Yatra, EaseMyTrip, and HappyEasyGo — to refund booking amounts of airline tickets to consumers whose travel was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The central consumer protection watchdog has also ticked off these entities for lack of proper consumer grievance redressal mechanism, deficiency in service, unfair trade practice and delay in providing refunds.
Taking note of high number of over 21,000 cases of pending refund involving Rs 14.7 crore of pending refund cases of airline tickets with the Yatra Online, which were booked during the Covid-19 lockdown, the CCPA headed by its chief commissioner, Nidhi Khare, has directed the company to provide the segregated data of airline wise pendency and bookings pending pertaining to “non-availability of bank details of consumers”.
The CCPA has directed Yatra and EaseMyTrip to refund booking amounts in the pending 21,387 and 78 refund cases, respectively. They have also been asked to submit a compliance report at the earliest.
The Authority issued these directions as the online platforms have failed to clear the pending refunds even more than two years after the Supreme Court passed an order directing time-bound refund of such bookings as flights were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In the HappyEasyGo case, there is a huge disparity in the data submitted by the company pertaining to 3,722 pending bookings till July 16, 2021, and 882 pending bookings till May 7, 2022, which has forced the CCPA to question the authenticity and correctness of data submitted. Despite several reminders, the company has failed to submit the compliance report to CCPA order of August 5, 2022,” an official said.
The official added that online travel platforms have not been pro-actively approaching the consumers regarding the huge pendency even after three years which has affected a large section of consumers.
The CCPA has also asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to promptly address huge pendency by these travel platforms related to outstanding refunds for flight bookings.
Officials said while some of the airlines have extended their support to cooperate regarding the pending bookings and have refunded in the form of credit shell, few others have rescheduled the bookings in order to reimburse the consumers.
Interestingly, Yatra had submitted to the CCPA that in 17,364 bookings, the refund could not be processed as the details of consumers’ bank details were unavailable.
The central consumer protection watchdog has also ticked off these entities for lack of proper consumer grievance redressal mechanism, deficiency in service, unfair trade practice and delay in providing refunds.
Taking note of high number of over 21,000 cases of pending refund involving Rs 14.7 crore of pending refund cases of airline tickets with the Yatra Online, which were booked during the Covid-19 lockdown, the CCPA headed by its chief commissioner, Nidhi Khare, has directed the company to provide the segregated data of airline wise pendency and bookings pending pertaining to “non-availability of bank details of consumers”.
The CCPA has directed Yatra and EaseMyTrip to refund booking amounts in the pending 21,387 and 78 refund cases, respectively. They have also been asked to submit a compliance report at the earliest.
The Authority issued these directions as the online platforms have failed to clear the pending refunds even more than two years after the Supreme Court passed an order directing time-bound refund of such bookings as flights were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In the HappyEasyGo case, there is a huge disparity in the data submitted by the company pertaining to 3,722 pending bookings till July 16, 2021, and 882 pending bookings till May 7, 2022, which has forced the CCPA to question the authenticity and correctness of data submitted. Despite several reminders, the company has failed to submit the compliance report to CCPA order of August 5, 2022,” an official said.
The official added that online travel platforms have not been pro-actively approaching the consumers regarding the huge pendency even after three years which has affected a large section of consumers.
The CCPA has also asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to promptly address huge pendency by these travel platforms related to outstanding refunds for flight bookings.
Officials said while some of the airlines have extended their support to cooperate regarding the pending bookings and have refunded in the form of credit shell, few others have rescheduled the bookings in order to reimburse the consumers.
Interestingly, Yatra had submitted to the CCPA that in 17,364 bookings, the refund could not be processed as the details of consumers’ bank details were unavailable.
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