Complaints against domestic air carriers swell to 7,200 in 20 months: Govt

Complaints against domestic air carriers swelled to more than 7,200 in the last 20 months, government data has revealed.

Of the 7,251 complaints received by Civil Aviation Ministry platform AirSewa from December 2016 to July this year, 2,233 pertained to flight delays and 1,753 were related to ticket fare and refunds, the data tabled in Parliament on August 2 said.

About 377 complaints regarding crew behaviour were also registered against the airlines, the data revealed.

Significantly, the management of a prominent low-cost carrier, which has drawn flak for cases of passenger misbehaviour, has asked its crew to be more cordial when it comes to passenger management.

Air traffic has grown exponentially over the years and between January and June this year, 6.84 crore passengers travelled by air, but the baggage of woes for passengers has also increased parallelly, observed an industry insider.

The draft Air Passenger Citizen Charter should be implemented without any delay and on a non-partisan basis, if the government is serious about addressing these issues, he said.

The draft charter was released in May, with an assurance from the ministry that it would be implemented within two months. However, it is still at the consultation stage.

The government data was compiled during a period of high traffic growth. It was shared by Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

The data stated that 122 complaints received in this period were related to maintenance and 75 about untidiness.

It added that 982 complaints were about issues related to check-in and boarding and 271 were related to the quality of food served.

As many as 796 complaints were related to baggage.

Aviation watchdog the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), in its latest report, also revealed that there was no decline in the complaints of domestic air passengers regarding luggage mishandling and 27.5 per cent of the complaints received in June this year were related to baggage. It shot up from 21 per cent of all the complaints in April to 23.9 per cent in May and to 27.5 per cent in June.