Will you get ticket refund for cancelled flights? Here is what you should know

Did you book a flight ticket, but cancelled it due to coronavirus lockdown? And, now are you curious to know about its refund status? Here is an important news for you! Airlines have declined refund to customers for cancelled tickets as lockdown has been extended. With the central government extending the lockdown to May 3 and subsequently, all commercial passenger services being suspended till then, domestic airlines have decided not to refund customers in cash for their cancelled flights. Instead, they are offering to reschedule tickets for a later date without any additional fee.

India had imposed a 21-day lockdown from March 25 to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Consequently, all domestic and international commercial passenger flights were suspended for this time period. However, most of the airlines had been taking bookings except national carrier Air India for domestic flights for the period beyond April 14.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the extension of lockdown till May 3, the aviation regulator DGCA issued a circular stating all international as well as domestic flights will remain suspended during the lockdown.

"Following orders from the Ministry of Civil Aviation issued to all airlines, we have extended the suspension of our operations until May 3, 2020. We are in the process of cancelling the affected bookings and we will offer customers free of charge rescheduling to another date until December 31, 2020," a Vistara spokesperson said, as per a report in PTI. The customer, however, will have to pay the fare difference, if any, at the time of rebooking, the airline said.

A GoAir spokesperson said that it has already "factored in" this type of scenario and that the airline will review its earlier scheme of providing rescheduling free of cost at a later date while protecting their existing bookings for one year. The airline had on Monday announced that it was extending the Protect Your PNR scheme till April 30, 2020.