Will the ride get better for you and me?

Last week, Indian flyers assumed centre stage as the Ministry of Civil Aviation unveiled a draft Passenger Charter detailing their rights for flying domestically. After spending months on finalising the details, the government put the charter in the public domain for comments.

On the face of it, the initiatives proposed in the charter sound promising. For example, there is a lock-in of 24 hours for cancelling a booking, provided the travel is to take place in the next four days . Further, the airlines will no longer be able to charge for making corrections in names if this error is pointed out within 24 hours of making a booking. At the moment, airlines charge for every correction made in a traveller’s name.

The draft charter also proposes stiff financial penalties on domestic airlines ranging from ₹5,000 (delay of more than three hours) to ₹20,000 (delay of more than 12 hours) in case a passenger misses a connecting flight due to delays.

Says John Nair, Head, Business Travel, Cox & Kings Ltd., “If implemented (24 hours to change a booking), this will be a very big positive as, many times, meetings get cancelled at the last moment and in case of an emergency, people tend to cancel their tickets. This will save them a huge amount of money as the minimum cancellation charges are between ₹2,400 and ₹5,000 per ticket.”

Nair also feels that the provision of seats for physically challenged passengers is a welcome move as, with air travel increasing, the number of physically challenged people opting for flying is also increasing.

The devil’s in the detail

However, the devil is in the details of the charter. Welcoming the draft charter, the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) says it enhances consumer protection with significant compensation for airline service failures. It, however, adds that implementation is the key.

Many others point to other aspects of implementation. For example, it is not immediately clear whether it will be airlines or passengers who will benefit from the proposal to allow a passenger to cancel a booking in 24 hours, provided the booking has been made for a journey which is to take place in the next four days .

Industry watchers point out that typically, in the Indian market, the low-cost airlines see 50-55 per cent of the bookings being made a month before travel while full-service airlines see 30-35 per cent of their bookings being made five to seven days before travel. So how are cancellations within 24 hours going to benefit either of them?

Further, some airlines like Vistara and Jet Airways already offer the facility of making changes in spellings as long as this is done on the airline’s website or App. They point out that it is not possible to extend this facility for tickets booked through online travel portals or travel agents as it adds to the airline’s costs. The charter is keen on extending this facility to travel portals and agents as well.

Further, there is no clarity on what happens when an airline pays compensation for a delayed flight. Will it still be expected to transport the aggrieved passenger to his final destination?

Even when it comes to passengers missing onward flights if the first leg is delayed, industry watchers point out that the relief is limited only to bookings made on the same PNR.

“The same PNR ensures that the two airlines have worked together to ensure that they carry the passenger from origin to destination and will take care of him/her in case one or the other carrier flight is delayed and the connection missed,” says an industry expert. This is already being done, so where does this initiative change things?

Airlines’ woes

The airlines declined to comment on the record on the draft policy but the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), an umbrella body of airlines in India, did send a letter to the government listing the airlines’ concerns about the draft charter.

The letter states that delays and cancellations are a function or consequence of infrastructure at various terminals, on the airside and also due to air traffic controller constraints, apart from weather, all of which are beyond their control.

Further, with close to 80 per cent of the bookings being through travel agents, airlines maintain that it is unfair to penalise them for not informing passengers about delays.

Besides the airlines’ concerns, the government’s decision that an airline will only be asked to compensate the passenger if the delay in the flight departure or the passenger missing the connection is due to a fault of the airline also raises questions about possible benefits for flyers: Who will decide whether it is the fault of the airline? And if a passenger is stuck at a connecting airport, who does he reach out to?

What is also causing airlines concern is the huge financial compensation that the government has proposed for lost bags. The charter proposes that the minimum compensation for lost baggage will be ₹3,000 per kg loss of baggage, ₹1,000 per kg for a delay and ₹1,000 for the baggage being damaged.

“The airfare will be less than ₹5,000 but if the bag is lost and the claim is for 5 kg, then an airline could be liable to pay ₹15,000 if the rates being proposed are accepted,” says an industry watcher.

Will flyers benefit?

Airlines also point out another dichotomy which has not been considered in the charter. The compensation levels that are being proposed are on the lines of what is paid out in developed markets like the European Union but the average fare charged in India is among the lowest in the world and the taxes on the industry are among the highest in the world.

They therefore warn that any attempt to push through such high compensation rates for lost baggage could negatively impact domestic airfares.

According to Nair, the move to allow an airline to offer full refund if a flight is delayed for more than four hours is also unlikely to benefit passengers.

“The fare the client will have to pay for travelling immediately will not be as cheap as what he paid for buying the ticket well in advance as the instant fare at times is more than 3-4 times of the earlier sold fares, especially if it is a weekend or the beginning of a week,” he points out .

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