There was no relief for passengers, either stranded or unable to proceed with their travel plans. Passenger trains as well as domestic and international flight operations will remain suspended till May 3, when the second lockdown period is scheduled to end, the Civil Aviation Ministry and Indian Railways announced on Tuesday shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement regarding the extension.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statement, “All domestic and international scheduled airlines operations shall remain suspended till 11.59 pm of 3rd May 2020”.
This means, by May 3 international flights will be barred for a total of 42 days and domestic flights for 40 days.
The domestic airlines have again decided not to refund the customers in cash for their cancelled flights and instead offer them with the option of rescheduling of tickets for a later date without any additional fee.
The Indian Railways, for its part, announced that all train services, barring special parcel trains and freight trains, will remain suspended till the lockdown ends on May 3.
However, there is no restriction on cargo flights. The government has taken the help of passenger airlines like Air India, IndiGo and SpiceJet, apart from BlueDart, for transportation of essential medical supplies within the country as well as to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Colombo.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation banned international flights from March 23 and the ban for domestic flights came into effect two days later, on March 25.
Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said there were good reasons for the lockdown to be extended till May 3. "We can consider lifting restrictions on both domestic and international flights thereafter. I understand the problems being faced by people who need to travel and request them to bear with us," the minister tweeted.
It remains to be seen if the ministry takes a decision on passengers’ complaints of airlines not offering refunds for cancelled flights and instead giving credit vouchers for future travel for the amount booked. This has been a major issue for the passengers.
While many people wanted to know the status of their flights since there was no update on the respective airlines' websites, several others have been demanding nothing less than a full and immediate refund.
Air India had earlier this month itself stopped taking bookings for flights in April. IndiGo, and its peers including SpiceJet and GoAir, were accepting bookings for travel from April 15.
Several airlines such as GoAir, SpiceJet and IndiGo have given customers the option of creating a credit shell for the amount of their cancelled flight ticket, a sort of coupon which can be redeemed within a year. Meanwhile, cancellation of tickets in many cases would
involve a deduction of charges, which would mean a loss on the part of the customer.
The Indian Railways, however, said that full refund of fare would automatically be provided to its online customers for trains cancelled up to May 3, while those who have booked at the counters can claim the refund till July 31. Customers will also get full refunds of their tickets if they are cancelling their advance bookings for trains not yet cancelled, it said.
It said no advance reservation of trains tickets, including e-tickets, will be allowed till further orders. However, facility of online cancellation will remain functional.