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To enable air passengers know their rights, IATA Agents Association of India intends to play an active role in enhancing their awareness.
Most air passengers who experienced flight delays are not claiming their rightful compensation either due to ignorance or because of unfamiliarity with the procedures for claiming compensations. Many are also under the wrong impression that travel insurance are the remedial measures for such claims, said Biji Eapen, national president, IAAI.
“Our effort is to provide information and awareness to passengers about the responsibilities of airlines in providing services, particularly on a flight delay, cancellation, diversion, denied boarding, refund charges, lost or damaged baggage or any deficiency in service”, he said.
Quoting DGCA 2019 statistics, Eapen said 1,311.54 lakh passengers were carried by domestic airlines from Jan-Nov 2019 and 41,823 passengers affected by flight cancellations. The airlines had paid a compensation of ₹50.73 lakh towards compensation/facilities. Similarly flight delays had affected 2,65,360 passengers and ₹199.97 lakh were paid as compensation, which is an inadequate amount considering the number of passengers affected by flight delays, he said.
Moreover, the compensation claims and the compensation settled in India highlights that almost 80 per cent either did not claim compensation or did not convincingly present their complaints or grievances, leading to the rejection by airlines citing technical reasons.
He alleged that airlines operating more frequencies with fewer aircraft and the unhealthy competition on ticket fares result in flight cancellation or delays.
IAAI has constituted passenger grievance forum – IAAI-Air Passenger Forum – to provide suitable advocacy and support for travelling public and travel agents.
The consultancy services are free and any passenger or member agent wants guidance on their grievances may contact us through passengerforum@iaai.in, with necessary supporting documents, he said.
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