Baggage, Refund Issues Among Major Passenger Complaints: Aviation Regulator

New Delhi:

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in its recent report stated that flight problems, baggage and refunds were the major issues out of the 246 passenger complaints received by the scheduled domestic airlines in September.

“During September 2023, a total of 246 passenger-related complaints had been received by the scheduled domestic airlines. The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of September 2023 has been around 0.20,” the air traffic report released by DGCA read.

According to the report, the major reasons for complaints are flight problems (41.9 per cent) baggage (19.9 per cent) and refund (15.4 per cent) adding that the major reasons for complaints are flight problem-related.

The report further mentioned that 242 complaints out of 246 complaints have been addressed.

Further, according to the report released by the aviation regulator, DGCA also received complaints regarding Customer service (10.2 per cent), and staff behaviour (4.9 per cent) but only 0.4 per cent of complaints are related to fares.

“There is a significant increase in complaints related to staff behaviour and customer service as compared to the previous month August. In August, there were 5.9 per cent of complaints related to customer service that have gone up to 10.2. Similarly, complaints related to staff behaviour that was 2.4 per cent in August have come up to 4.9 per cent,” the report read.

In September, a total of 663 passengers were denied boarding and airlines spent Rs 71.52 lakhs on compensation and facilities. Similarly, 40,940 passengers were affected due to cancellations of flights and airlines spent Rs 128.70 lakhs on compensation and facilities. A total of 123063 passengers were affected due to delays and airlines spent Rs 149.46 lakhs towards facilitation.

The report states further that the maximum number of complaints were received by Indigo (61) followed by Spice Jet (55) and Air India (54).

Ministry of Consumer Affairs on Thursday expressed concerns about alleged unfair trade practices involving airlines and online travel aggregators. Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh mentioned that the National Consumer Helpline has received about 10,000 complaints related to the airline sector in the last year.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)