Question : Complaints by Air Passengers

(a) whether it has come to the notice of the Government that complaints regarding flights, baggage and customer services have been registered by the passengers in the country and if so, the details thereof;

(b) the details as to the number of consumer complaints received by the Government with regard to domestic air travel operators long with the prominent reasons of such complaints received during the last three years;

(c) whether any penalty/punishment was imposed by the Government on any domestic airline operator on the grounds of faulty customer/passenger services and other allied problems during the last three years and the current year, if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor;

(d) whether the Government acknowledges that the cancellation and refund rules associated with the domestic air travel is more airline operator friendly than consumer friendly in the country, if so, the reasons therefor along with any proposal of the Government to establish a balance between the rights of the two groups; and ;

(e) whether the Ministry is aware that all flight passengers are facing daily issues about the flight tickets rates, delay in service, poor customer service and if so, the details thereof and the steps taken/being taken by the Government so far in this regard?

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

(a) & (b) : Air passengers complaints are received in the Ministry of Civil Aviation through CPGRAM portal of Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances, INGRAM portal of Department of Consumer Affairs besides those received through AirSewa Mobile App/Web Portal. Total No. of complaints received since 2016 through CPGRAM, INGRAM and AirSewa portal are 15531, 1532 and 10434 respectively. The stakeholder and category wise records are maintained in AirSewa only and 7251 no. of complaints were received from air passengers against air travel operator since 25 November 2016, the date of commencement of AirSewa, till 31.07.2018. Such complaints involve issues like ticketing fare & refunds, staff/crew behaviour, flight delays, baggage Issues among others. Details of complaints is at annexure.

(c): No such penalty/punishment has been imposed by Government.

(d): Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) Series M, Part-II titled "Refund of Airline Tickets to Passengers of Public Transport Undertakings". As per the provision of the said CAR, under no circumstances, the airline shall levy cancellation charges more than the basic fare plus fuel surcharge and the airline shall not levy any additional charge to process the refund.

(e): With regard to air fare, it is stated that air fare is neither established nor regulated by the Government as per prevailing regulations. In order to ensure appropriate protection for the air travelers in case of flight disruptions like denied boarding, flight cancellation and delays, DGCA has issued CAR Section 3- Air Transport, Series ''M'', Part- IV titled "Facilities to be provided to passengers by airlines due to denied boarding, cancellation of flights and delays in flights".