Chennai: The government may be pushing for digital transactions but Air India is yet to update itself wholly .The airline has a mobile app where people can book and cancel tickets, but travellers are made to go to a nearest booking office to get refunds for cancelled tickets, especially if one leg of a round trip is cancelled.
Passengers are inconvenienced because of this glitch which makes the mobile app irrelevant as the airline has not revised its commercial procedure though it is promoting online bookings. Airlines are increasingly shutting down counters and moving to digital interface. With the advent of travel portals, more than 90% airline tickets are booked online. SITA Passenger IT Trends Survey 2017 says almost 90% of the people book their flight with self-service technologies.
A passenger who had booked a return trip to Port Blair for his wife and himself using the mobile app wanted to re schedule the ticket but was told by the Air India call centre that it could be done only at a counter because it was booked through the app.
Later, when he cancelled the Chennai-Port Blair leg, he got a mail saying the money could be refunded only after the return journey . "They told me that the software will not encash for one way. Now, I have to wait for two months till my wife returns to get back the money," he said.
An Air India spokesperson said this was a peculiar case in which the onward leg of the journey alone was cancelled. "We ask the passenger to come to the counter for the purpose of verifying whether it is a genuine case of rescheduling. Refund cannot be issued immediately for cancellation of onward leg of the journey because the ticket will get locked and return trip cannot be performed using it.This is why we insist that refund will be issued after the return trip is performed. If both legs are cancelled then there is no problem," the spokesperson said.
12/10/17 Times of India
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Passengers are inconvenienced because of this glitch which makes the mobile app irrelevant as the airline has not revised its commercial procedure though it is promoting online bookings. Airlines are increasingly shutting down counters and moving to digital interface. With the advent of travel portals, more than 90% airline tickets are booked online. SITA Passenger IT Trends Survey 2017 says almost 90% of the people book their flight with self-service technologies.
A passenger who had booked a return trip to Port Blair for his wife and himself using the mobile app wanted to re schedule the ticket but was told by the Air India call centre that it could be done only at a counter because it was booked through the app.
Later, when he cancelled the Chennai-Port Blair leg, he got a mail saying the money could be refunded only after the return journey . "They told me that the software will not encash for one way. Now, I have to wait for two months till my wife returns to get back the money," he said.
An Air India spokesperson said this was a peculiar case in which the onward leg of the journey alone was cancelled. "We ask the passenger to come to the counter for the purpose of verifying whether it is a genuine case of rescheduling. Refund cannot be issued immediately for cancellation of onward leg of the journey because the ticket will get locked and return trip cannot be performed using it.This is why we insist that refund will be issued after the return trip is performed. If both legs are cancelled then there is no problem," the spokesperson said.
12/10/17 Times of India
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