Question : Draft Passenger Charter for Air Passengers

(a) whether the Government has framed the passenger charter for the facility of air passengers;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

(c) whether the Government in its charter has taken care of the interests of the passengers by ensuring that they are not overcharged by the aviation companies on cancellation of their tickets, if so, the details thereof;

(d) whether the Government is aware that the aviation companies charge arbitrarily for last minute booking of flight tickets;

(e) if so, the steps being taken by the Government to remove irregularities of ticket charging and the provision made in the charter to deal with airline employees who misbehave with the passengers; and

(f) whether the Government has also directed all the airlines to display the passenger charter their website as
well as at the counters at airports for awareness and if so, the details thereof?

The Minister of State in the Ministry of CIVIL AVIATION
(Shri Jayant Sinha)

(a) to (c) A draft Passenger Charter incorporating rights for air passengers was released on 22.05.2018 for public consultation.

The Charter includes measures in the areas of delays and cancellations of flights, denied boarding due to over-booking, cancellation of tickets by passenger, name change on the ticket and lock-in period of ticket and various facilities at airports.;

(d) Airfares are not regulated by the Government.

- Under the provisions of Sub-Rule(1) of Rule 135 of Aircraft Rules 1937, airlines are free to fix reasonable tariff having regard to all the relevant factors, including the cost of operation, characteristics of service, reasonable profit and the generally prevailing tariff.;
- Airfare so established by the airlines is published on their website under the provision of Sub-Rule (2) of Rule 135, Aircraft Rules 1937.;

- Airlines remain compliant to the regulatory provisions of Rule 135 as long as the fare charged by them does not exceed the fare established and displayed on their website.;;

- The domestic airline pricing runs in multiple levels (bucket or RBD) which are in line with the practice followed globally. Usually, the lower levels of the fare in the fare bucket are assigned to advance purchase (popularly known as Appex fares) bookings (eg. upto 90, 60, 30, 14 and 07 days before departure). As the time lapses and the date of journey approaches closer (from 07 days to date of departure), the fare available is on higher side of fare bucket.;;

(e) To curb the incidents of misconduct and manhandling of passengers by the staff of private airlines, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation( DGCA) has directed all the scheduled airlines to develop and document a procedure for passenger handling in the area in line with international best practices and provision of Civil Aviation Requirement(CAR), Section 3 Series M Part VI titled "Handling of unruly/ disruptive passengers". All the scheduled airlines have developed their SOP in this regard.;

(f) No, Madam. The Passenger Charter is at draft stage.