Spice Jet Airlines — No refund provided for flight cancelled due to lockdown

I have booked my flight from SpiceJet India with PNR DBY8GW . Date of travel as 30th April 2020 from Bangalore to Delhi. Due to lockdown imposed on 22nd March 2020, it was certain that my flight will not operate so I cancelled my flight booking on 1st April 2020 thinking that as flights will not operate in lockdown so I will get refund for my booking if i cancel it.

Finally the flight got cancelled, but SpiceJet is not giving me full refund saying that I have cancelled the flight from my side. This is very wrong practice where SpiceJet is not giving full refund. I talked to their customer care executive and gave all details and they agreed to refund but later in mail hey refused again.

Below is the whole mail communication details with Spicejet:

Hi,

Just to add to below mail:

This is such a lame excuse given by Spicejet for not refunding the full amount for my booking.

Please give answer to below questions:

1. How can I know there will be a circular by the government on 14th April 2020 before 14th April when the ticket was cancelled? Was there any mail/news/circular given by SpiceJet or the government before 14th April 2020 about it? No, there was no such notice given.
2. Can a flight operate in lockdown which was first imposed from 22nd March 2020. So it was certain that the flight would not operate in lockdown so I had no other option but to cancel my ticket.
3. Was my cancellation done before lockdown was imposed? No. It was done after the lockdown so it is quite clear that it has been cancelled because flight cannot operate. I cancelled it after the lockdown imposed and I thought if I cancel it early then the flight operator like you will get enough time to arrange the refund. Otherwise the set same of people from your management would have questioned that you have delayed in canceling the flight.

I know very well that my case is very strong and I have full right to get my full refund in this case. I can go to any extent to get my full money refunded and will not allow you to do crooked practice by denying me my rightful full refund.

Regards,
Vinam Parihar
[protected]

On Thu, 14 Jan 2021 at 22:03, Vinam Parihar wrote:
Hi,

I had a discussion with your customer care executive where they said your request for full refund is initiated.

In my case, I have cancelled my booking only because I got to know that there is lockdown imposed and I cannot travel. Even I have cancelled my booking after lockdown imposed.

This is really bad as you are charging full money for a cancelled flight.

I had raised similar request in indigo for my return flight booking and they agreed to refund me full amount. If you want I can share the mail. Attached is there itinerary for your reference.

This is completely unacceptable. I hope you understand the situation what a customer has to go through in this tough time and you will initiate the full refund.

Otherwise I have to raise it to consumer forum.

Regards,
Vinam Parihar

On Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 3:30 PM SpiceJet Customer Relations wrote:
Dear Mr. Parihar,

PNR No. : DBY8GW

Greetings from SpiceJet.

This is in reference to your e-mail regarding your request for cancellation fee waiver for your booking with above mentioned PNR.

We regret to inform you that we would not be in a position to waive off the cancellation fees for ticket booked with above mentioned PNR, because the suspension of all our operations as per Govt. directive from15th April to 30th April. was announced dated 14th April. Hence for the bookings cancelled before the said date the cancellation fee shall be applicable.

In case you need further clarification/assistance, please feel free to write to us.

Thanks & Regards,
Nishtha Gulati
Customer Experience, SpiceJet Ltd
321, Udyog Vihar | Phase IV | Gurgaon - 122016| India
E-mail: [protected]@spicejet.com
W: www.spicejet.com F: facebook.com/flyspicejet T: @flyspicejet