With uncertain airline future, buy tickets from travel portals

NEW DELHI: Air travellers in India are left to fend for themselves if the airlines they have booked shuts down before their travel date. Refunding passengers and employee salaries comes at the fag end of a long list of payables that such airlines face which is headed by clearing statutory dues and bank loans.

In such a scenario, the best bet for flyers who want to book airlines facing an uncertain future is to buy tickets through reputed travel portal or big agencies. At least, flyers will stand some chance of getting their money back in case the airline folds up as the portal will pay them back and then keep doing rounds of courts to get their money from airlines.

"This is what happened with Kingfisher. We refunded people who bought the airline's tickets from us. We still have to get a few crores from Kingfisher. At present also, we are refunding passengers whose flights have been cancelled and hopefully we will be paid," said travel portal Yatra.com president Sharat Dhall.

In recent past a number of airlines like Kingfisher, MDLR and Paramount have folded up and travel agents complained that they had refunded passengers while they were yet to get their money from the airline.

But people will be advised to check the portal or agency's policy of refunding in case of airline closure as there is no hard and fast rule on refunds in India. Successive governments and aviation authorities have shown more interest in saving airlines and airports. Passenger rights have not been too important for them.

Thomas Cook MD Madhavanan Menon, said, "It does not matter how the ticket has been bought — through airline website or other distribution channels. We pay airlines every week for tickets sold and don't get any credit. We are only facilitators," he said.

During the Kingfisher fiasco Air India had accepted a large number of passengers of Kingfisher's cancelled flights when the airline had been slashing its schedule due to leasors taking back planes.