Supreme Court directs Centre, airlines to discuss refund money for cancelled tickets

Supreme Court on Friday took up for hearing petition filed seeking a refund of money spent on booking airline tickets that had been cancelled during lockdown period. apex court asked Centre to take a stand on issue, even as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told Supreme Court that “in his personal view, money ought to be returned to people”.

Senior Advocate and former Solicitor General Harish Salve representing a private airline stated that ne of airlines had made any money during lockdown period and instead, had suffered a hit of over 60 billion dollars globally.

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're is zero revenue to airlines'

“re is zero revenue to airlines,” Senior Advocate Harish Salve said. He went on to say that “where in world were airlines refunding complete fare to passengers for cancelled flights”.

airlines said that y would like to sit down with Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India and arrive at a solution in best interest of people, while also ensuring prejudice is caused to airlines.

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Supreme Court asked Centre and airlines to sit toger and reach a decision after discussing modalities on how refund can be processed, if at all. top court also suggested that airlines can credit money back to accounts of users and allow passengers to use credited money to book a flight for any or route.

Government and airlines have been asked to formulate a plan and come back to Supreme Court after 3 weeks. In this regard, a tice was issued to Centre to respond to petitions clarifying ir stand.

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