Carriers paid Rs 50 L compensation to travellers in Nov: Govt

While the airlines paid cash compensation of Rs 33.46 lakh to nearly 7,500 passengers who suffered due to last minute flight cancellations, 545 travellers were paid Rs 16.20 lakh as they were denied boarding during the month, according to government data released today.

During the same period, more than 70,698 passengers were forced to wait at the airports due to delays in flight departures, the figures said.

Among the airlines, maximum cases of denied boarding and last minute flight cancellations were reported by Jet Airways-JetLite combine, where 425 flyers were denied boarding and 2,862 passengers had to suffer due to last-minute flight cancellations during November.

The airline paid Rs 12.12 lakh as compensation to the passengers, the data showed.
However, flyers travelling on SpiceJet suffered the most during the month, as 29,863 passenger had to either wait on the airports or were transferred to other airlines due to delay in the flight operations.

The low cost carrier also paid Rs 22.04 lakh penalty to the flyers as 2,486 people had to suffer due to cancellation of flights.

The official figures also said that national carrier Air India has not provided the data on flight cancellation, denied boarding and delay in operations for last two months.

Among the other carriers, 1,853 passengers travelling on Kingfisher-Kingfisher Red combined had to go through difficult times due to cancellation, while 102 flyers were denied boarding on the airlines' flights.

The airline paid Rs 14.42 lakh as compensation to the flyers for both type of cases, the data showed.

The airlines are required to submit data on number of cases of denied boarding, cancellations and delays along with the status on a monthly basis, in accordance with the Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) norms, set by the aviation regulator DGCA.