(Image source from: Times of India)

The Indian government in new draft rules to improve the flying experience in India has decided to not to charge passengers for canceling their flight tickets within 24 hours of booking them.

A draft chart out was put out by India’s aviation ministry since years also proposes compensation to passengers denied boarding due to over-booking or flight delays  attributed due to an airline.

The proposed compensation ranges from Rs. 5000 for a airline delay of 3 hours and R. 20000 for more than 12 hours.

Junior Civil Aviation Minister Jayant Sinha said on Tuesday referring to a draft charter on passenger rights, “The passenger charter of rights defines and augment entitlement and compensation of air passengers. No cancellation charges will apply on tickets within 24 hours of their booking, provided the tickets are booked 96 hours before the flight’s departure.”

Furthermore, passengers will also be allowed to amend journey details, without attracting penalties, in the first 24 hours of purchasing a ticket. For departures scheduled within the next 96 hours, or four days, these concessions would not apply though.

It is also proposed by the government that cancellation fee under no circumstances, transcend base fares. The proposals are the part of draft passenger charter and the amended rules are possibly come into action later this month.

“Earlier, cancellation fees charged by travel agents and online portals would increase the total charges to more than what the base fare was. Under the new passenger charter, we have mandated that it cannot be more than the base even after including cancellation fees of agents,” said BS Bhullar, head of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

“Airlines being held responsible for missed connections beyond what is the final destination is tantamount to madness. This is not practiced anywhere in the world. Do the railways pay if train delays result in a missed flight? The vast majority of delays are caused due to infrastructure constraints and other factors not in our control,” said a senior airline executive.

“Telecom ministry is working on licensing regulations to allow Wi-Fi on flights in India. Regulations should be out in a week and airlines may be able to offer Wi-Fi on flights in two months from now,” said Aviation Secretary RN Choubey.

By Sowmya Sangam