Getting refunds from airlines and travel agents is probably one of the biggest challenges travellers face over the last two years. Not all passengers get a full refund, confirms a survey conducted by a community social media platform, LocalCircles. The survey, responded by more than 20,000 travellers from 332 districts across India, revealed that only 29% of people received a full refund for their tickets from airlines and travel agents. Among the respondents, 62% were men, and 38% were women.
While around 14% of the respondents confirmed receiving a partial refund, 29% said they received a nominal amount. There are also cases of ticket re-booking, with 14% saying that their agents re-booked their tickets for a future date. Nearly 14% did not respond to the query. The scenario of hotel bookings is comparatively better, with 34% successfully managing to get their full refunds.
LocalCircles is known to conduct surveys in the aviation and hospitality sectors. The firm did a similar study during the second COVID-19 wave. The then-survey result revealed that only 12% of citizens who booked airlines tickets received a full refund for their bookings. Only 13% of people received a full refund for hotel bookings in the second wave.
During the third wave, the number of people who could secure refunds for their hotel and airline bookings is comparatively twice the figure from the second wave of COVID-19.
Even though the threat of Omicron looms over the head, travellers were still making plans for trips. In a survey conducted by LocalCircles in the last week of December, nearly 58% of the respondents confirmed their plans to travel between December 2021 to March 2022.
Domestic travel witnesses a drop due to the COVID-19 surge
With COVID-19 drastically spreading across the country, state governments have imposed strict restrictions on movement, making it difficult for people to travel freely. International travel is also on hold, with the scheduled flights yet to get back to operations.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the number of domestic air passengers has been witnessing a drop since late December 2021, since the cases are showing a rise.
