Inconvenience at airports, mining irregularities in Odisha, J'khand among issues raised in LS

New Delhi: Lok Sabha members on Friday raised a host of issues, including inconvenience faced by passengers at airports and alleged irregularities in mining in Odisha and Jharkhand, and sought the Centre's intervention.

Highlighting the problems faced by flyers during Zero Hour, Congress member K Jayakumar said the airlines only refund a small amount of the fare to the passengers on cancellation of their tickets.

"While cancelling the tickets, the airlines are taking more than 75 per cent of the amount. Hardly any amount is being returned to the passengers who are cancelling the tickets," the Thiruvallur MP charged.

"The pathetic thing is that some of the airlines like Indigo are auctioning the seats. During web check-in, if you do not pay, you will not get a boarding pass at all. You have to get it at the airport. It is a very difficult thing when you rush to the airport to catch a flight," he added.

Jayakumar also accused the airlines of levying "a variety of abnormal and unreasonable taxes" and also inventing "new names" to charge various other fees. "For example, airlines are charging aviation security fee, user development fee etc. Recently, a tax was introduced by Indigo airline called 'CUTE tax'. This is for common use of terminal equipment by the passengers. The Airport Authority (of India) is levying its own tax," he added.