New Delhi, Mach 24:
IndiGo announced that they have refunded 99.5% of the total amount they owed to their customers due to the complete shutdown of air services in 2020. Passengers who could not fly due to the pandemic-induced lockdown last year were to be provided full refund by order of the Supreme Court.
IndiGo, the country’s largest airline by market share, said that since the resumption of complete operations in May 2020, it has been rapidly refunding amounts owed to customers whose flights were cancelled during the lockdown.
The airline spokesperson said, “The airline has already processed close to ₹1,030 crore in refunds, which amounts to about 99.95% of the total amount owed to its customers. The pending credit shells are mostly cash transactions wherein IndiGo is awaiting bank transfer details from the customers.”
Advocate Shirish Deshpande, chairman of Mumbai Grahak Panchayat, a Mumbai-based consumer organisation, said that the situation seems to be improving as the number of complaints against airlines have decreased.
Ronojoy Dutta, chief executive officer, IndiGo said, “The sudden onset of Covid-19 and the resulting lockdown, brought our operations to a complete halt by the end of March, 2020. As our incoming cash flow through ticket sales was impacted, we were unable to immediately process refunds for cancelled flights and had to create credit shells for the refunds that were due to our customers. However, with the resumption of operations and a steady increase in demand for air travel, our priority has been to refund the credit shell amounts in an expedited manner. We are pleased to share that we have disbursed 99.95% credit shell payments and will complete the remaining payments as soon as we receive requisite details from the customers.”
“There are exceptionally few complaints related to refunds. We haven’t received any complaints in the past eight days. However, it needs to be checked if the airlines are paying the interest amount that the Supreme Court had asked them to,” Deshpande said.
