DGCA — Un-reasonable Deductions/ Refund

Dear Sir,
With anguish and pain, we wish to bring you to kind notice the following grievance: -

1. We belong to Chandigarh and are pursuing our Law-course from Bharati Vidyapeeth New Law College, Pune.

2. Due to Covid-19 we had to suddenly travel to Chandigarh on 18th March, 2020 by Air, though we already had booked air tickets for travel from Pune to Chandigarh on 3rd May 2020. It was a great gesture on your part and also by virtue of orders of Hon’ble Supreme Court that we were given refunds of the air-ticket by the airline.

3. That now in February when our Law college indicated physical classes, we had planned travel back from Chandigarh to Pune and got booked two air-tickets via Indigo Airline PNR No HFUH3V (For Rs-11, 934) to board on 2nd March 2021 at -7:35 am.

4. That just a very few days before we were to travel back to Pune, the Second wave of Covid-19 pandemic showed its wider grip and much more in Maharashtra. The possibility of attending physical classes immediately being not feasible in our wisdom, we got the air-tickets re-scheduled and this time by paying additional sum of Rs 4, 296. (Total)

5. The re-schedule travel date was 9.04.2021. As you know that the Covid-19 pandemic has attained frightening proportions in the country, Pune being the worst hit city in the world, there was no possibility to travel to Pune on 9.04.2021 either. In the circumstances an effort was made to further re-schedule the flight but there were huge deductions and, in the circumstances, the only choice left was to cancel the flight tickets which were cancelled on 4th April 2021 and out of total paid price of two tickets of Rs 16, 605 (including cost of rescheduling), we were refunded a meagre amount of Rs 3, 497.

6. You would find that due to Covid-19 pandemic, which is declared by Government of India as a natural calamity, we have suffered un-warranted financial loss, the benefit of which has incidentally accrued to the airline and maybe to the Government in the shape of tax component included in the air-tickets. It is a situation where force majure principle gets attracted.

7. We would request you to intervene and get our balance amount of Rs 13, 108 refunded.

Hope that you would be cautious of this hard situation and revert back soon after resolving our grievance.