India’s civil aviation ministry has imposed fare regulations to prevent carriers taking advantage of the widespread disruption to budget carrier IndiGo’s operations.
IndiGo has suffered extensive cancellations and delays which it has attributed to flight-duty time rule changes.
The ministry has expressed concern over “unusually high air fares” being charged by “certain airlines” during the disruption.
“In order to protect passengers from any form of opportunistic pricing, the ministry has invoked its regulatory powers to ensure fair and reasonable fares across all affected routes,” it states.
Domestic scheduled fares are being limited to Rs7,500-18,000 ($83-200) depending on distance. The ministry has instructed airlines to maintain “strict adherence” to the fare caps it has implemented.
“These caps will remain in force until the situation fully stabilises,” it says, stressing that the measure is to “prevent any exploitation of passengers in distress”.
It aims to monitor fares in real time across airlines and online travel portals, and warns that deviation will result in “immediate corrective action”.
IndiGo has been ordered to clear all pending refunds to passengers “without delay”, with processes for all cancelled or disrupted flights completed on 7 December, and to ensure separated baggage is delivered to passengers within 48h.
The carrier must set up dedicated and pro-active support operations to ensure refunds and re-arrangement of passenger travel is conducted efficiently “without the need for multiple follow-ups”, the ministry says.
Airlines have also been instructed not to impose any rescheduling charges for passengers whose travel plans were affected.
IndiGo claims it has restored connectivity to 95% of its network, doubling the number of flights it has been able to operate – to around 1,500 – and managing to serve 135 of its 138 destinations. But on-time performance was still only 20% on 6 December.
“While we understand that we have a long way to go, we are committed to [building] back the trust of our customers,” the carrier states.
IndiGo’s chief, Pieter Elbers, has reportedly been issued a notification from the Indian civil aviation regulator, the DGCA, querying the reasons for the chaos, indicating that it believes IndiGo failed to prepare sufficiently for the revised flight-duty rules.
