Flight cancellations during lockdown: IndiGo to refund all passengers by Jan 31

IndiGo on Monday said it will refund all customer credit shells, which were created when flights were cancelled due to the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year, by January 31, 2021.

The airline in a statement said it has already processed close to Rs 1,000 crore of refunds, which is approximately 90 per cent of the total amount it owed to its customers.

IndiGo chief executive officer Ronojoy Dutta said the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 and the resulting lockdown brought the airline's operations to a complete halt by the end of March.

"As our incoming cash flow dried up, we were unable to immediately process refunds for cancelled flights and had to create credit shells for the refunds that were due to our customers," he noted.

However, with the resumption of operations and a steady increase in demand for air travel, the airline's priority has been to refund the credit shell amounts in an expedited manner, Dutta said.

"We are pleased to commit that we will disburse the full 100 per cent credit shell payments latest by January 31, 2021," he said.

India resumed scheduled domestic passenger flights on May 25 after a gap of two months due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in the country since March 23 due to the pandemic.

However, airlines have been permitted to operate special international flights under the Vande Bharat Mission since May and under the bilateral air bubble pacts since July.

Photograph: Vivek Prakash/Reuters