Government calls meeting of all airline operators to address consumer grievances

New Delhi: As the complaints from air travelers piled up to about 10,000, the Centre finally blinked to take the errant airline operators to the task for ‘deceiving’ the travelers who use the airline as a mode of travel.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, the nodal ministry to protect the rights of consumers, has called a meeting on November 8 with senior officials of all airlines and travel portals to discuss the different dark patterns being used by airline operators to ‘befool’ the travelers.

While talking to Millennium Post, Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh said that the meeting has been called to discuss several pertinent consumer-centric grievances, including ‘refund not given after ticket cancellation’ and showing every seat as ‘paid’ despite free web check-in, among others.

“The ministry has received about 10,000 complaints related to the airline sector through the government’s National Consumer Helpline in the last one year. About half of the complaints are related to “ticket cancelled but no refund received from airlines”. Some of the major grievances also include airlines showing every seat as paid despite free mandatory web check-in,” Singh said.

“These complaints are just a tip of the iceberg. We have called a meeting on November 8 to discuss these consumer grievances with all airlines, travel portals and consumer organisations,” Singh said.

While booking a ticket either through airline websites or travel portals, he said that the department has noticed that many of the consumers are not happy with the interface and they think they are “misled and cheated”.

“Airlines say ‘free web check-in’ but ‘seats are paid’. Once a traveller has paid the fare and the airline has issued a confirmed ticket then all the services have to be fair and to the advantage of the consumers. You cannot take consumers for a ride,” he stressed.

In reply to any action being taken by the ministry as this model of dark pattern is in practice for a long time, the Secretary said, “Let’s first have a meeting. After taking their (airline operators) views, the government will definitely take a ‘strong’ decision to protect the interest of consumers.”

“We hope that we will be able to persuade and convince the airlines and travel companies that in case they are indulging in some practices which are not fair they should refrain from doing it,” Singh added.