With the outspread of Coronavirus globally, low cost carrier, IndiGo recently announced exemption on cancellation and rescheduling charges on flight bookings till 31st March. In a recent statement, IndiGo announced that, “The cancellation fee has been waived off on existing and new domestic and international bookings made between March 12 and March 31st.” Further it stated that there will be no fee charged for date change for flights booked between 12th to 31st March, 2020.
However, the exemption comes with a provision. Shedding more information on the provision, IndiGo Chief Commercial Officer, William Boulter, said, “We understand that some passengers are concerned about committing to travel, given the current Coronavirus issue. To take this anxiety away and make their travel hassle-free, we are waiving our normal change fee on all travel during the next two weeks and for all new bookings made in that period.”
This move will enable the passengers to book their flights at “affordable” fares with flexibility of rescheduling without change fee, if needed, added Boutler. Further he said, “While the Coronavirus is a serious challenge for all of us, we believe that measures such as this will help alleviate its effect on India’s travel.”
A passenger will have to pay the fare difference in case of rescheduling the journey to a later date, as per the terms and conditions. Also, the customer will have to inform the airline three days in advance for rescheduling of the journey.
Other Airlines dealing with cancellations
- Other Indian air carriers such as Air India, GoAir and AirAsia too are waiving off cancellation charges only for flights that were plying to Shanghai and Hong Kong. SpiceJet has also extended free cancellation to passengers booked to Riyadh and Jeddah for the purpose of pilgrimage to Mecca.
- Emirates Airlines has also come up with a new waiver policy which it announced recently. As per the policy, it will allow passengers to reschedule their travel dates free of cost for tickets issued from March 7 to March 31. Further, the customers will be able to rebook their travel date up to 11 month span. In order to combat with infection, Emirates has been implementing enhanced disinfecting procedures for flights that return from COVID-19 hit regions. Quoting with an example, an official said that, “if there was an instance of a suspect or confirmed case flying with the airline; it would conduct a deeper cleaning of all cabins and replace all HEPA filters on the aircraft.”
- The Lufthansa Group has also announced to allow their passengers to reschedule bookings until December 31. Besides, travellers who already have a Lufthansa ticket can postpone bookings made before March 5 for travel up to April 30, and new bookings made between March 6-March 31 will be allowed to be amended.
- Singapore Airlines, which has cancelled as many as 183 flights to and from Singapore to seven airports in India between March and April, has offered free cancellation and change fees for customers with tickets issued on or before March 3 for travel period between March 3 to April 30. According to the airline’s website, the new travel date must commence on or before 31 August 2020.
