2 years later, Turkish Airlines asked to refund ticket cost, pay damages to Chandigarh resident

Garg alleged that thereafter he has been trying helpline numbers of the Turkish Airlines unit and senior reservation/ticketing & customer relations North/East India unit to get the requisite amount refunded. However, there has neither been any positive response nor any credit of the amount to his account. The complainant said that he received an email from the ticketing and customer relations North/East India Unit, asking for sharing the Turkish Airlines e-ticket number, which the complainant promptly shared the same day, but to date there has been no refund or update of any kind.

Turkish Airlines in reply stated that they have accordingly issued tickets in the name of the complainant for his travel from Berlin to New Delhi via Istanbul and New Delhi to Berlin. However, due to the unfortunate situation of Covid-19, the international travel ban was extended by the Government of India.

It had sent an email to the registered email address of the complainant on February 15, 2021, informing him about the cancellation of his tickets/flight. As per the terms and conditions, the complainant had two options: either refund of the flight tickets or voucher tickets which can be used for booking flight tickets with the opposite party. The complainant chose for the voucher and accordingly the opposite party had issued a voucher amounting to €600.46, which is 15 per cent extra amount of the actual amount of the flight tickets.

Also, it was submitted that the complainant failed to make the request by providing his account details to their nearest branch office for the refund of the cancelled ticket amount against which refund cheque was issued. However, due to default on the part of the complainant, there has been a delay in payment of the refund amount.

After hearing the matter, the commission held, “After going through the documents on record, there is no evidence to show that the complainant had opted for vouchers. And since it was an online transaction, therefore in our opinion, opposite parties (OPs) should have refunded the money by way of online transfer procedure. Hence, in absence of any concrete evidence on record, we are of the considered opinion the act of OPs for firstly, cancellation of the flight in question without giving prior information to the complainant, thereafter non-refunding hard-earned money of the complainant in absence of any service provided by the OPs proves deficiency in service and its indulgence in unfair trade practice.”

The commission thus ordered both the OPs to refund amount of 600.46 EUR at the current rate to the complainant, and to pay an amount of Rs 10,000 to the complainant as compensation and Rs 7,000 as cost of litigation.